


Garth

by Chemicallywrit



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Dungeons & Dragons - All Media Types
Genre: Anti-Hero, Con Artists, F/M, Gen, Gods, Paladins, Redemption, Reluctant Hero, and it has to go SOMEWHERE, anyway meet my worst son, i wrote fifty pages of backstory and my dm refused to read it, when a random god looks at you says yes that one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:08:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27909508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chemicallywrit/pseuds/Chemicallywrit
Summary: Garth is a conman, and he's very good at it. So good that when his past catches up to him, he cons his way into supplication at the monastery of a god who represents everything his opposite. It's the perfect plan, until it works too well.This is the story of how a man whose life is extraordinary became a paladin of a god of the ordinary.
Relationships: Original D&D Character(s)/Original D&D Character(s), Original D&D Character(s)/Other(s)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	1. Gambler

“You’re wasting your time, son.”

Garth smiled winningly, a smile that had in the past made at least two people of weak constitution faint. “I don’t know, Harv. I’m feeling kinda...lucky.”

He dropped the dice in his hand onto the table. All he had to do was roll higher than a six, and—

“That’s an eight!” called the man at Harv’s elbow, and the crowd surrounding the table whooped and shouted. Garth collected the stack of coins in the center with one hand and stuck out another to Harv. “No hard feelings?”

“You’ll stay and play another,” Harv sneered, ignoring Garth’s hand. “I’ll win my money back.”

“No, no, Harv, I must be going on home,” Garth said, leaning over the table to pat Harv on the shoulder and picking up the dice on the table. “How about tomorrow, eh? You can win back some of your money then.”

“I had better see you here,” Harv said, shoving a finger into Garth’s chest.

“You will, I promise.” Garth offered Harv the dice, dropping them into his hand, and slid the coins he’d just won into his bag. “Ladies, gentlemen, others, it has been a pleasure.”

Bidding the crowd farewell, Garth walked out of the inn and into the cold, starry night.

He made certain that he was well out of sight of the inn and up the road before checking that he had, in fact, retrieved his own weighted dice from the table. Yep, there they were. Lovely little gems; made them himself. He gave them a little toss in his hand and chuckled.

He’d stashed his stuff just off the road here, hidden in a hollow in the trees. Gambling was turning out to be very profitable, but that was no reason to stay in town and court the wrath of Harv, or alternatively, stay in town and lose good money for no reason. Gathering his things, Garth made his way back to the road and headed far away from the village, whistling as he went.

***

Garth reached the next village early in the morning, yawning as he stepped into the light of dawn in the village square. Nice little place, this, big enough for a full market, which was now setting up along the main street. Now he’d find a room for the day and get some sleep; no need to gamble in this town, if he didn’t have to. Harder to track him that way.

The market was really coming alive today. In fact it seemed like more than just a market; people were hanging up bunting and dressed in the sort of finery you could afford when you were a peasant. He noticed that a lot of people were streaming up the road a little farther; there was some kind of a structure up there, a heavily built brick building of some kind. A temple maybe, or a university.

Ah, well, maybe after a nap he could find out what all the fuss was about.

He found a tavern before too long, striding inside and taking a seat at the bar. There was bunting hung up in here, too, and some decidedly unique decorating choices. A small stained-glass window hung in one wall, in a place of honor, but Garth couldn’t make out what it was portraying. Some sort of a figure, maybe, but it was so jagged and abstract that Garth couldn’t be sure.

“Morning, miss. Breakfast?”

Garth froze. The voice had come from behind him, and he knew it, all too well. Damn, wasn’t this an unfortunate coincidence.

Maybe he hadn’t been seen. Maybe he could slip away still—

“Sweet gods. If it isn’t Garth Leithart.”

Oh, great. Leithart, he hadn’t heard that one in a while. It was an alias that he’d left behind for a variety of reasons.

He turned toward the massive person glaring at him from two seats down. “Petras! Fancy seeing you here. How’s your husband?”

They snarled. “Been better. The boss did not take kindly to him handing over a bag full of fool’s gold.”

“I’m sure you understand it’s nothing personal,” Garth said with bravado he did not feel. He didn’t know who it was that delivered his funny money to Taran Storrath, and had thus managed to say exactly the wrong thing! Fantastic!

“I dunno about that, Garth,” Petras said, scooting over to the stool next to him and leaning close enough that Garth could smell their morning breath. “See, when things happen to my Bill? I tend to take it real personal.”

“Listen, I am sorry, I swear I am,” said Garth, feeling around behind him for the next stool and easing himself onto it. “I never meant for Bill to get in the middle of this. You know I hold you both in the highest regard.”

“I do know that, I do.” Petras moved stools after him. “Here’s my dilemma, Garth. Mrs. Storrath put a very tempting price on your head, and getting a little payback for Bill’s trouble? Well that’d just be gravy.”

“Now, Petras, please.” Next stool, carefully. “What could that price possibly be? A hundred gold? I can pay you that just to leave me alone.”

“It’s four hundred, Garth.” Petras advanced stools after him.

“Four hundred?” Garth paused. “That’s actually kind of impressive.”

“Yeah, Bill and I will be real impressed.” Petras grabbed hold of the front of his shirt, and damn it all if he wasn’t out of stools. “Nice thing is, it’s four hundred dead or alive.”

“What about five hundred and you forget this happened, Petras? Huh? C’mon, when are you going to get a deal like that, five hundred gold to do no work!”

Petras paused to consider this.

“Look, it’s a sweet deal, we both know that.” Garth did not look at Petras’ knuckles, which he knew were riddled with the evidence of people who were not as quick on the uptake as he was. “It’d be something nice to bring home to Bill.”

“You have it with you?” Petras asked finally.

“I have fifty with me.” Which was true, goodbye gambling winnings from last night. “The rest I stashed outside of town.” Which was not true.

“You’re still doing that?” Petras scoffed. “You’re going to get robbed one of these days.”

“Beats getting mugged,” Garth said cheerfully.

Petras released his shirt, but placed a massive hand on the nape of his neck. “Here’s what you’ll do. You’ll lead me to it, and I’ll take it, and I’ll be out of town having never seen you.”

“A perfect plan,” Garth declared.

“Give me the fifty.”

Garth handed over his full purse without hesitation. He had a few more coins in various pockets and folds in his pack, so no fear there. Petras weighed it in their hand and nodded, satisfied. “Okay, this stash of yours.”

“Follow me,” Garth said, hopping up as well as he could with a vice around his neck. Petras was right behind him; if anyone had seen the two people leaving the inn, they might have assumed friendship. Would that this were the case, Garth thought, heading back down the road in the direction he’d come from, against the crowd. Whatever he did, it’d have to be fast.

“Holy gods!” Garth yelped suddenly, pointing off to one side.

“What?” demanded Petras, and they and a few other members of the crowd turned to look.

Garth dove forward, pulling his neck free, took a sharp right turn into the group of people, and flipped his hood over his gingery hair.

“Garth!” Petras shouted.

Garth didn’t dare look over his shoulder. He bent his knees, making himself shorter to disappear into the market crowds. He weaved among the peasants, stopped up beside a cart, and paused as if examining his nails to throw a glance behind him.

“Garth Leithart!” Petras was bellowing, wading into the crowd much too close for Garth’s taste. “I’ll kill you!”

Garth took a step back and spun behind the cart, crouching.

“What are you, a thief?” The fruit vendor aimed a kick at him. “Get out!”

“Apologies!” He straightened just enough to run behind the line of carts, dancing and skidding around the other vendors to their protests and surprise.

“Leithart!” Petras shouted again. Gods, they were going the same direction as him, albeit not as fast. And he was out of carts.

All right, he could hide here and hope Petras didn’t find him, or he could make a break for it across the crowd and join the many people heading up to the brick building on the hill.

A second’s capitulation and imagining Petras upending the carts and screaming his name made his decision. He slipped into the crowd.

Posture, gait, height, he could change those, and did. Bent his knees a little, dropped one shoulder, shortened his steps and bounced more on his toes. Between that and the hood, he should blend in just fine. Where was Petras? Looking back would only draw attention.

The brick building began to emerge from the trees, and Garth realized that it was some kind of monastery. It was odd, to have a festival centering around a monastery, but that seemed to be exactly what was happening.

They were about twenty feet from the building when Garth felt a large presence at his elbow. He hazarded a glance from the corner of his eye. Yep. Petras.

Changing neither his gait nor speed, Garth drifted away from them, finding himself on the edge of the crowd.

As he watched, a thickset brown-skinned woman cut away from the crowd and walked around the back of the building.

Another glance at Petras revealed them stopped in the crowd; Garth cut away and followed the woman.

And blessedly, as he turned the corner, Petras was out of sight.

“Are you a supplicant?”

Garth started. The voice had come from a middle-aged woman, a different one than the one he’d followed here; her face was as round and golden as a harvest moon, and she was wearing some kind of ceremonial robe and standing in a small doorway. Around her neck was a medallion made of copper, or at least plated in it, impressed with a crossed hammer and nail. Not a warhammer, a craftsman’s hammer. “What?” Garth said without thinking.

“Are you a supplicant to Arkhitekton?” she asked, in such a way that suggested she now knew the answer.

“Uhh—” Petras could turn that corner at any minute. Maybe a little safety would be wise—

“My child, if you are not here as a supplicant, I must ask you to move along.” The cleric waved a hand of dismissal.

“No, wait.” Garth took a knee in front of her. “Have you ever had a call you didn’t understand? Felt something deep in your guts? A pull?”

The woman looked surprised, unsure for just long enough.

“I am a supplicant,” Garth said, bowing his head to plead. “If you will have me.”

Her silence was short enough that Garth knew he’d won even as she spoke. “Come in, my child, come in.”

Garth leapt to his feet as she held open the door. “Thank you, thank you so much.”

And he entered the monastery.


	2. Supplicant

The last couple of days had been very strange for Garth.

He’d been given a place in a covered courtyard to sleep, along with the other supplicants. There were about twenty of them in total, one of whom was the thickset woman Garth had followed to the back door. Her name was Fennit, and she was very gung-ho about this whole supplication business.

Garth had been surprised that they hadn’t taken any of his worldly possessions. They’d given him a simple cassock, just like all the others, and offered to wash his clothes, but when his clothes had been returned to him, he’d been encouraged to wear whatever was most comfortable. He’d changed back into his own things, and he hadn’t been the only one.

The moon-faced cleric was Mother Jori, and she seemed to be the one in charge of all things regarding new recruits to this religious order. Garth had decided right away that he would be playing the part of a well-traveled, thoughtful man who had received a mysterious call to a god he knew little about, which was almost completely true. Mother Jori had listened to the tale he wove, about an insistent feeling he could not ignore, with an alarming amount of attention. He had no idea if she believed him or not, but she let him stay, and told him that these first few days were a time of contemplation and rest.

Garth had nodded wisely and busied himself with recon.

The monastery was a sprawling sort of building, extremely solid in construction but haphazard in planning. If Garth had to guess, it had begun its life as the chapel at the center, which was relatively small and simple. He’d gone inside briefly, to be greeted by wooden pews, simple architecture, and a bogglingly large stained-glass window that as far as he could tell was depicting nothing in particular.

As for the rest of the place, it was hardly a fortress: living quarters, gardens, workshops, walls to hem it all in that seemed to be more boundary than security. He watched over the course of a few days as some of the monks who lived here deconstructed and reconstructed a crumbling section of wall into a sturdy testament to craftsmanship.

Craftsmanship seemed to be vital to this god, Arkhitekton. The monks treated a day’s work as a sacred act of worship, as far as Garth could tell. Then again, they tended to treat things like meals and games in the same way, so maybe that was just how they were.

Most of his questions he asked Fennit, who was glad to answer. She’d been friendly to him immediately when he told her his tale of mysterious vocation.

“Work is sacred, yes, but no more than every part of life is,” she’d told him, as they sat in the setting sun outside a woodshop one day. Garth had purloined a couple of extra iced buns from the dinner table, one of which she’d accepted gratefully. “I don’t know—Arkhitekton isn’t as popular as other gods specifically because they are patron of the mundane, you know?”

“Then why do you want to enter service?” asked Garth.

“It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do,” Fennit said, shrugging. “I grew up around here, hearing their word of life lived. It speaks to me. I want to spread it.”

“So you’ll be going the cleric route,” Garth said. There were three paths an acolyte could choose once they’d trained for a bit: cleric, monk, or paladin.

“I think so.” She nudged Garth. “What about you, mystery man?”

“We’ll have to see.” He took a bite of his iced bun and said with his mouth full, “I love an endless possibility, don’t you?”

Fennit laughed.

Garth stuffed the rest of the bun in his mouth and did not tell her that he planned to be gone long before the choice was his to be made.

***

“Supplicants, this will be your first test in service to Arkhitekton,” Mother Jori said, addressing the crowd of hopefuls and Garth. “Should you pass the test, you will become fully fledged acolytes of this order. Should you fail, your service to Arkhitekton must be as it is for all people: to live your life for their glory, as well as you can.”

Garth made a show of listening intently, although he’d already decided that the easiest way out of here and back on his merry way would be to just fail the test. They’d been vague on the details of it, but it had something to do with scars and telling your life story to a witness, and undressing for some reason, “to whatever is comfortable,” which seemed like a trap. If Garth had to guess, it was either a self-flagellation ceremony, which he could just refuse to do, or a way of proving yourself holy and blameless, a test Garth would fail by any measure, so he wasn’t too worried about it.

“You will leave whatever clothing and burdens you mean to shed in the narthex, and enter the chapel,” Mother Jori went on. “The witness will be inside. He will not see you, so have no fear; the only person you are vulnerable to at this time is Arkhitekton.” She paused. “To that end, I urge you to take this seriously. The trial has been known to be dangerous.”

Garth frowned. Odd. Probably self-flagellation, then.

“All you supplicants who are waiting may take a seat,” Mother Jori said, gesturing to the grass outside the chapel. “Supplicant Brotta? You are first.”

Garth plopped down onto the grass beside Fennit. “You nervous?”

“A little,” she said thoughtfully. “You know, I think I’ll go in totally naked.”

Garth shot her a surprised look. “In front of a witness too. That’s bold.”

“The witness is blind,” Fennit said dismissively. “It’s Brother Ebert. I just think...you know, if it’s about vulnerability to my god, then I’d like to show willing.”

“That is a weird way to phrase that,” Garth declared, and Fennit laughed.

The time passed slowly. Eleven people went before Fennit, coming out one by one. Most seemed unscathed, a few exhausted, almost all with a small medallion clutched in their hands to signify their new status as acolytes. 

Fennit went in and came back out grinning, flashing her medallion at Garth. “Made it!”

“Well done,” he said, standing to slap her on the back. “What can I expect in there?”

She shrugged. “It all seemed pretty straightforward to me. I don’t know what Mother Jori meant, talking about danger.”

“Will you be going off to the celebration?” Garth said, gesturing toward the common hall. He’d better say goodbye if she was.

“No, I’ll wait for you,” she said.

Ah, that was worse. He’d have to put on some kind of a show of being horribly disappointed about failing. “Thank you,” he said.

At that moment, the twelfth supplicant emerged from the chapel with a wail. She was a plain-looking girl—Garth didn’t know her name—and she stumbled from the door, bent double and clutching her stomach. Was her tunic smoldering?

A couple of monks rushed forward to help her and led her away toward the infirmary. She was weeping as she passed them by; yes, Garth could smell something burning.

“Good gods,” Garth breathed.

“Oh no.” Fennit looked alarmed. “What happened?”

“Not so dangerous, eh?” Garth said wryly, even though his mouth had gone dry.

“Supplicant Garth,” called Mother Jori.

Fennit loosed a low whistle and patted his shoulder. “Good luck. Arkhitekton be with you.”

“That’s precisely what I’m afraid of,” Garth quipped. Fennit laughed, and he stepped forward, suddenly aware that meddling in the affairs of the gods was how people got smited.

Smited? he wondered as he stepped into the narthex and took off his shirt and vest. Was that right? He left shirt and vest on a convenient bench and pulled off his boots and stockings. Smitten. Smote. It was probably smited.

He capitulated for a bit, but decided that if he was going to die he’d rather do it with his pants on. Feeling vulnerable nonetheless, shirtless and barefoot, he entered the chapel proper.

The chapel was warm and quiet compared to outside. Dark, but in a cozy sort of way. Despite the fact that it was sunny out, the stained-glass window was dark, almost mirror-like. The witness, Brother Ebert, sat facing a corner. He was a tiny old man with near-black skin and a network of wrinkles on his face. He was knitting.

“Come closer, Supplicant,” Brother Ebert said.

Garth wasn’t sure what to expect, but this wasn’t it. He did come closer, feet padding on the stone floor, and stood in front of the window, his own face and body reflected back in pieces and shards. “If you’re blind, why face away?”

“Makes people less self-conscious, I find,” the witness said. “Now, Supplicant, in the presence of Arkhitekton, you will give account of your life lived.”

“Tell you...what, my life story?” Garth scoffed. That was a nonstarter. He had done too many things on the left side of legal.

“In a way, yes,” the witness said.

“Where do I start? ‘I was born at a very young age?’”

“Most people start with their scars.” The witness shuffled in his seat. “When you look at your reflection, what do you see?”

Garth looked. A man, good shape, very ginger, on his head and a little on his chest and belly. Not a lot of fat to be spared, if he said so himself. Scads of freckles, just loads of them, all over, like poppy seeds spilled on flour.

“Just freckles, no scars really to speak of,” Garth said—

Burning, burning, like a hot brand, on his knee, his hands, his gut and ribs, his back, his face and the side of his head—Garth cried out in pain. “Gods—what is this! Stop!”

“A warning,” said the witness quickly. “Tell the truth, Supplicant!”

“Okay! Okay, yes, I have plenty of scars, please—” 

And the burning was gone. 

Garth panted. “Why would you do this?”

“I’m not doing a thing,” said the witness, voice totally level. “Arkhitekton is god of all life lived. But you must speak of your life, Supplicant.”

“I don’t understand,” Garth said, his voice strangled as he tried to catch his breath.

“You will.”

The pain was totally gone, but there was a smoldering hole in the cloth over his knee, exactly the shape of the scar that lay underneath. “You burned a hole in my breeches,” Garth accused.

“It’s your own fault for wearing clothes,” said the witness mildly. “Tell me about that scar.”

“Uhh…” Garth frowned, trying to remember. “I don’t know, it was ages ago. I was peeling an apple and my knife slipped. Is that what you want to know?”

“It’s a start. I believe you said you had plenty?”

Garth sighed. “Okay, uh...there’s one on my stomach.”

“And where did that come from?”

“When I was an actor—” The craggy red pit in his gut began to sear— “Augh—fine, fine, a soldier, I was a soldier!”

Again, the burning immediately went away. 

“I was shot by an arrow. Clean wound.” Garth wiped sweat from his forehead, shaken. “You...that’s not public knowledge, Brother, you can’t tell anyone that.”

“I’m sworn to secrecy about all I witness,” Brother Ebert said gently. “Do not be afraid. Why keep it secret?”

Garth swallowed. “I deserted,” he said hoarsely.

“I see. Your next scar?”

“Just like that?” Garth demanded. “Moving on?”

“I have been a witness for a long time,” Brother Ebert said. “You do not surprise me. Your next scar?”

Garth squeezed his eyes shut. All right, then. He would tell the truth about every scar, hope Brother Ebert didn’t spill, fail the test, and get the hell out of here. “There’s a slash on my side.” A thin line, almost shiny from scar tissue. “From when I was an actor. We thought real swords might help sell the show, but I just ended up stabbed onstage because my co-star was an idiot.”

“And?”

“Uh.” Garth looked at his hands. “My knuckles are pretty torn up. Been in a lot of fights.” He paused, looking at the particular mottling on his left hand. “Although one time I did try to punch someone’s helmet off.”

“How did that go?” The witness sounded almost amused.

“It worked, and it looked extremely impressive, and I broke one of my fingers,” said Garth, shaking out his hand with the memory of it.

“What else?”

Garth shrugged. “My ear, I suppose? I had an earring torn out.”

“By whom?”

“A jealous husband. I’m lucky it was just the ear, if I’m honest. He wasn’t happy with me.”

“And why was that?”

“Why do you think? He caught me in bed with his wife.”

“Ah. What else?”

Garth looked at his face in the window and hesitated. “I’ve got a little scar above my eye.” It cut his brow in half, which he’d always thought was rather dashing.

“And how did you get that?”

He chewed on the sentence for a moment. He didn’t want to say. “My brother. Smashed a bottle over my head once.”

“Older or younger?”

“Older.” Much older, twenty-five or so when Garth was about twelve. He should have known better.

“Is that all of them?”

“Yes,” said Garth, and then hissed when his back started to burn. “No—no. I forgot one.” He sighed with relief when the burning dissipated. “On my back. From when I was a kid.”

“How did that happen?”

Some very old anger reared its ancient head. Garth clenched his jaw. “My father was a cruel bastard whose idea of discipline was caning a child who had just lost his mother.”

“Hm. That was the truth.”

“That he’s a cruel bastard?” spat Garth. “Believe it. Witness that.”

“So witnessed.” Brother Ebert put down his knitting in his lap for a moment. “Thus is the life you’ve lived, Supplicant. What is the life you will live in the days to come?”

Garth opened his mouth to spout some nonsense about service to Arkhitekton.

“I will remind you to tell the truth, as far as you know it.”

His mouth snapped shut. And he didn’t want to sell this anyway, right? He was trying to fail. “The truth is,” he said, carefully, “the truth is that the life I mean to live from here on will not involve Arkhitekton at all.”

There was a change in the light, abrupt and briefly blinding; sunlight poured through the stained glass window, bathing him in jagged fragments of color. The sight was beautiful, and Garth suddenly felt very small and afraid.

“You’ve passed the test,” the witness said. “You may find, Acolyte, that you are quite wrong.”

“But—I passed the—Why? Why me?” Garth whispered, cotton-mouthed with fear.

“Who is to say?”

“How did you see that if you’re blind?” Garth demanded, throwing a hand out to the window.

“See what?” Brother Ebert reached into the sewing basket that lay by his chair and drew out a medallion. “This belongs to you.”

“There’s got to be a mistake.” This wasn’t supposed to be _convincing!_

“I very much doubt it.” The witness held out the medallion more insistently. “Take it, and go in peace.”

With no idea what else to do, Garth did, and walked back into the narthex, mindlessly throwing his clothes back on. What the hell had just happened? Staring like a zombie, he reappeared out into the cold sunlight and stumbled forward toward Fennit.

“Well?” Fennit asked.

He couldn’t summon any words, so he held up the medallion.

She grinned. “Congratulations, Acolyte.”

He’d expected to be saying goodbye to her now. He’d expected to be out of here, free again. “Thanks,” he choked out. And when she gave him a concerned look, he added, “Look, look what happened.” He gestured toward the hole in his breeches. “What a sorry state.”

“It’s your own fault for wearing clothes,” she teased. 

“You know, the witness said the exact same thing,” he muttered, which made her laugh.

“Let’s go get you a drink, huh?” She slapped him on the back. “You look like you could use one.”

“Sure.”

Fennit chattered on about something as they walked. Garth wasn’t really listening. Instead, he looked at his medallion, which on the one side had the crossed hammer and nail everyone’s medallion had, and on the other…

This couldn’t be. Brother Ebert was lying about being blind, or there was some magic at work—

The other side depicted an arrow, a smiling mask, and a pair of dice.


	3. Acolyte

It wasn’t long before Garth missed being a supplicant.

The period of time you were an acolyte was a year, he discovered, after the third day of training, stumbling toward the cell he’d been given next to Fennit’s. He had no time to process this before he fell asleep, which he managed to do the moment his head hit the pillow.

Each morning was dedicated to study, contemplation, and prayer, and each afternoon to hard, merciless work. They had one day a week off to try and soothe any aching muscles and catch up on sleep before it was back to work. Even Fennit admitted that it was grueling.

“I suppose it’s to impress upon us the importance of a full life?” she said, putting down the stack of wood she’d been carrying on her shoulders onto the pile outside the carpentry workshop. She wiped the sweat off her face and took a beat, some tiny curls of dark hair sticking to her forehead.

“I’ll be five inches shorter if they keep on impressing things on me,” Garth quipped, putting down his own load of wood. She laughed. She was pretty when she laughed. If he wasn’t leaving, he might give it a shot.

But leaving he was, the moment he could stay awake long enough to sneak out of his cell. “Cell” was apt, even though the tiny room was actually fairly nice, if simple. This place was making him feel trapped—it was almost as bad as being a soldier. All work, no rest.

It took three weeks before he could make himself stay up long enough to sneak out. True, nobody had explicitly said he wasn’t allowed to leave, and one or two acolytes had already fallen away, but Acolyte Garth was a character he’d like to preserve in people’s memories, if possible. Do you remember that charming man who disappeared in the dead of the night? A shame...

Garth packed his things and left. It didn’t take long. He climbed over the wall to avoid trifling with the squeaky gates, even though he was fairly sure they were unlocked.

The village below the monastery was still relatively wakeful when he entered it, people milling about here and there. The tavern he’d entered when he first came was open, pouring warm bright light into the street. Maybe he’d get a drink before he was on his merry way.

Outside the door of the tavern was a notice board. One of the notices caught his eye; he paused.

_Wanted,_ it read, _Garth Leithart, thief._ Instructions to bring him to Mrs. Storrath, dead or alive. Four hundred gold, just like Petras had said. And a pretty good likeness as well, making special note of his red hair and freckles.

Aha. Mrs. Storrath was not about to let him go. Damn.

Garth leaned on the wall beside the notice board, eyes narrowed, staring into space. “Thief.” That was rude. Just because he’d borrowed money with no intention of paying it back didn’t make him a _thief_. It made him...a foolish investment. Really it was Mrs. Storrath’s own fault. No need to get testy and put a price on his head.

Dead or alive. Damn. That was going to be hard to navigate. He’d have to be looking over his shoulder constantly, laying low, keeping out of trouble, and that last bit was the hardest because he would be out of money fairly quick. And Mrs. Storrath loved to treasure a grudge. 

Running for his life—again! This would be the third time!—did not sound like his idea of fun. Where to go out of her reach?

There was always the monastery. The thought floated innocently into his head. No one would look for him there. He was safe.

Garth groaned and rubbed his temples. Gods damn it all, anyway. It looked like Acolyte Garth was not dead yet.

Back to the monastery he went, climbing over the wall to the top. He stopped for a second to look at the buildings of the monastery, bathed in moonlight.

He could survive staying here for a while. Hell, he could survive anything for a year. But the medallion that was hanging around his neck under his shirt was a time bomb. Sooner or later someone would find out that he did not belong, and he would be cast back out into the harsh world.

He slid off the wall and landed neatly in the dust on the other side. Then he’d just have to be careful. Just good enough of an acolyte to be unsuspicious. He could do that; slightly higher than mediocrity was where he’d spent—

Garth turned a corner and froze, face-to-face with Mother Jori.

“Evening,” he managed to eke out.

Her eyebrows rose a little, but for the most part she looked nonplussed. “Hello, Acolyte.”

“Just—going for a little walk,” he said, as convincingly as he could manage.

“As was I,” said Mother Jori, voice placid as a glass mirror. “Would you like to join me?”

“No, I’d better get back to bed,” Garth said hastily. “Work to do in the morning.”

“Wise, Acolyte.” Mother Jori nodded, possibly approvingly. “Good night.”

Garth made sure she’d walked well away before releasing the breath he’d been holding. He’d almost blown it then and there. He had to be more careful.

Garth retreated back to the relative safety of his cell.

***

Many weeks passed.

Garth was digging a latrine ditch. He was digging a latrine ditch in the hot sun of midsummer, wearing a hat that was extremely unflattering, for the sole reason that an unflattering hat now meant he wouldn’t look like a watermelon flecked with freckle seeds for days afterward. And his hair was growing out, too short to tie back but still long enough to annoy him with ticklish little curls on the back of his neck and around his ears. He supposed he could find some sheers or a razor to cut it, but he needed about an hour to do it so it didn’t end up looking like he’d got his head stuck in a thresher, and he didn’t have that kind of time right now.

He stopped digging for a moment and looked at his hands, which had just moved past the blisters-on-blisters stage and into the itchy-new-callouses stage.

“Fennit, this is the roughest my hands have ever been,” he complained to his friend, who was digging beside him.

She snorted. “Sounds like someone used to be rich.”

“Look at this,” he said, holding them out for her to look. “I’m going to have to bathe them in lard for weeks to fix this.”

“Soft, soft,” she teased, taking a break herself to lean on her shovel.

“There’s nothing wrong with soft,” he scoffed. “Soft is nice.”

“Sure,” she chuckled.

He leaned toward her on his shovel, looking her in the eye. “You should try it sometime.”

Fennit frowned, silent for a moment. “Garth, are you flirting with me?”

Garth was taken aback. Yes, the answer was obviously yes, and he had been for a while to little avail. “No one has ever asked me that before.”

“Are you?” she said.

He picked up his shovel again, adding another scoop of dirt to an almost-full wheelbarrow. “What if I am?”

“You shouldn’t,” she said, returning to her digging as well.

“There’s not a rule against it,” he said. He’d checked, as it happened. No reason to get himself kicked out of the monastery for a little fun.

Fennit stuck her shovel in the pile of dirt in the wheelbarrow, hopped out of the ditch, and picked it up. “You shouldn’t because I might start to take it seriously.” And she wheeled it away.

Garth watched her go, suddenly and uncharacteristically sobered.

***

The problem, Garth thought, washing his hands in the water he’d drawn from the well in the center of the monastery, was that everything about being an acolyte of Arkhitekton demanded honesty. Nobody had any secrets. He was genuinely uninterested in his fellow acolytes, Fennit excluded, and yet he knew so much about them, because talking about one’s life was practically a spiritual discipline in this place.

For his own part, he said little. It was bad enough what Brother Ebert knew. No need to spread anything else around. But now…

Fennit hadn’t spoken to him for an entire day, and he had not approached her to try. They wanted different things, he suspected, and even if Garth got what he wanted, there was no telling how long it would last, or how it would affect things in the aftermath. He’d never carried on with someone for...how long did he have left as an acolyte? Seven, eight months? After which he would be gone, and Fennit would be off to learn to be a cleric. But if whatever little affair Garth attempted ended short of that, which was likely, then chances are he would have lost his only friend in this place.

He may have already, he thought, shaking his hands dry.

Gods, though, today had been boring. No one to talk to. He didn’t want to keep this up for months.

Out of habit, Garth emptied the little bucket of water into the garden nearby, watering the tomatoes, before replacing it by the well and heading to the common hall for supper. He could go for it, pursue Fennit, but that would end in her asking about all his scars, and either requiring him to make up an intricate and difficult-to-remember backstory or be bloody honest. Assuming he could convince her that his interest was, in fact serious. And it wasn’t very.

On the other hand, he could pretend like nothing had happened, which required no honesty at all. Maybe that would work.

He entered the common hall, where people were already sitting down to eat, and found Fennit at their usual table, taking a biscuit from the stack of them on the table.

“I hope they made that chicken soup,” Garth said, taking the seat across from her. “I love that stuff.”

She looked up at him, sighed shortly, and reached for the butter for her biscuit.

Damn, that wasn’t going to work. And the more he thought about a love affair, the worse an idea it seemed. Maybe there was a middle ground here, something...something else. Unfortunately it would require a touch of honesty. 

Well, so be it…

“Listen,” Garth said, a little quietly, “you know that you’re my only real friend here, don’t you?”

“You could have lots of friends, Garth,” Fennit said, buttering with much more concentration than biscuits usually required. “Lots of people like you.”

“And there are many people worth liking, I’m sure,” Garth said, waving a vague hand. But you’re the only one who makes life here in the monastery bearable, he did not say. “But I like you best. And I would hate to drive you off.”

“I am your friend, then?” she said, finally meeting his eyes.

“Yes, of course.”

“If that’s so, why all the flirting?” she asked, pointing the butter knife to him in a way that was surprisingly menacing.

Garth swallowed. A nonspecific truth here, perhaps? “It’s a habit, I’m afraid, to flirt with anyone I find attractive.”

Fennit lowered the knife and considered this, frowning. Garth waited.

“You think I’m attractive,” she said finally, her voice colored with disbelief.

“Have you never been accused of that before?” Garth asked lightly.

The corner of her mouth twitched. “‘Accused,’ no.”

“People have no taste,” Garth said earnestly, and she smiled properly this time. Good. “I would be glad to stop flirting if you would prefer. I’m sorry it troubled you.”

“I would prefer that,” she said, putting down the butter and taking the jam. “If we are to be friends.”

Garth suppressed a sigh of relief. No harm done, then. It was all right. “Good. And now I think you owe me an apology as well.”

She shot him a bewildered look. “Excuse me?”

“Yes,” he said, with mock offense. “How dare you threaten to take me seriously? The absolute nerve.”

Her bewilderment broke into a laugh. “Oh, well, I am sorry. I shall never make that mistake again.”

“You had better not!” said Garth, letting himself smile now. “Tch, I tell you, some people.”

Her laughter was music to his ears. She took a biscuit from the stack and tossed it to him. “Well, good news for you, they did make that chicken soup.”

“Praise Arkhitekton,” Garth said, raising a hand.

Fennit took a bite of her biscuit and raised it as well. “Amen.”


	4. Fraud

After six months of hard labor, the acolytes’ workload was diversified. Instead of hours of heavy lifting, they were rotated into assisting with the skilled trades practiced by the monks of the monastery.

Garth found most of the trades mind-numbingly boring. Carpentry and tailoring were all right, and blacksmithing was interesting, if complicated, but rope-making and coopering and weaving were tedious as hell. He wasn’t very good at any of them, either, which was equal parts frustrating and embarrassing. It became clear what kind of lives people lived before they were acolytes, and Garth could only imagine what people thought of him, terrible at everything he tried.

Until clerking, that is. He was fairly good at clerking. Nice handwriting, the monk told him, possibly hiding some mischief in their tone. Despite the fact that he wasn’t a disaster at this trade, he enjoyed it the least.

Other than that, though, once he wasn’t being constantly battered by manual labor, he found life in the monastery strangely peaceful. The rotations of trade work were just different enough from week to week to keep him from getting too bored, and it was a bit nice to know that what was expected of him was to more or less just show up. He was...accepted.

Too bad they didn’t know they were accepting a fraud and a liar.

Nevertheless, he settled. With the extra time he now had, since the acolytes were no longer being constantly exhausted, he started to endear himself to people other than Fennit. They would sit around a table in the common hall and tell stories or jokes, which Garth was quite good at, if he said so himself. They weren’t a bad bunch. Mostly locals, mostly peasants, one or two merchants, a former soldier who luckily Garth had never served with. A god of mundanity appealed to each one of them in different ways. Garth could never quite relate, but he listened. He’d take some of their stories with him, when he left at the end of the year.

***

“Ugh,” Fennit said, closing her eyes and rubbing her face. “My head is hurting again.”

The two of them were in one of the monastery offices, taking account of supplies. It was a clerking week, which meant Garth was feeling grumpy, but Fennit being on this rotation with him was helping considerably. They pored over the ledgers on the tiny table by careful candlelight. The room was small and overly warm, but it was better than being outdoors in the dry bitter winter.

“I wish they’d keep business hours to daylight,” Garth commented, glancing up at her. The sun had already set. “The candlelight can’t be helping you.”

“It’s like my eyes just refuse to focus after a bit,” she said, sighing and running a hand over her hair. One thing the candlelight was good for, Garth thought, was being terribly flattering to Fennit’s skintone.

“You should get some spectacles,” he said. “I had a friend who had that same problem. The spectacles helped.” ‘Friend’ was a lie, it had been his aunt, who was in no way, shape, or form friendly, but Fennit didn’t need to know that.

“Spectacles?” she snickered, shooting him a look. “Am I made of money?”

“Ah, they’re not too expensive,” he said, waving a dismissive hand. “I’d get ‘em for you.”

“You’re a good man, Garth,” Fennit said loftily, “but Arkhitekton willing, I will not need to peer at ledgers by candlelight ever again in a month or so.”

“Fennit,” Garth said.

“Hmm?”

Garth opened his mouth to say, I’m not a good man, I’m a liar, and what’s more I’ve lied to every single person I’ve met here despite how they’ve treated me, and if they knew that I’ve cheated and gambled and swindled my way through my life, they’d run me out of here into the arms of the criminal who’d collect my life sooner than my debts, and furthermore I wish you knew this about me so that _somebody_ could tell me how I managed to hide this long under the nose of an active god.

But what he actually said was, “Do you cut your own hair?”

She looked at him with one eyebrow raised. “Yes. That’s an odd question.”

“Only it’s curly, like mine, right?” He gestured at his springy locks, which were currently tied tightly back to keep them out of his way. “I can cut my hair, but it takes me a long time to get it right and I’d need a mirror—I don’t even know where to find one here.”

“You want me to cut your hair?” she asked, smiling a little. “I can do that.”

“Yes please, thank you,” Garth effused. “May our god bless your hands.”

“It’s only a haircut, you drama queen,” she said dismissively, bending back over the ledger.

Garth did the same, biting his rebellious tongue.

***

“How exactly do you want this to look?” asked Fennit from behind him. They were in the carpentry workshop after supper, on the logic that it’d be easiest to sweep up and that it was one of the only warm spaces in the monastery that was empty this time of evening.

“Do you remember what I looked like when we were supplicants?” Garth said, sitting in a wooden chair and wondering if this was a bad idea.

“I think so?”

“Like that, but shorter.”

“How short, though?”

“I’d like to keep the curl,” he said. “It’s dashing.”

“All right.” Fennit didn’t sound very optimistic. She went to work.

“Am I going to regret allowing someone near my head with sharp implements?” he asked her.

“I don’t see why, that never goes badly,” she said. When he chuckled, she added, “Stay still.”

“Sorry.”

“You could use a shave, too,” she muttered.

“I’ll be drawing the line at razor blades, thank you,” he responded. “I can take care of that myself.”

“As you wish,” she said, amused.

He worked on staying still, following her when she gently turned his skull, trying not to shiver when her fingers brushed the tips of his ears. Gods, the soft tugs on his scalp as she measured curls, the methodical _snip_ of the scissors—it was all Garth could do to keep from relaxing into a puddle. He must trust her more than he’d realized. This was just... _nice._

After a few minutes she said, “Feel this, tell me if it’s right.”

He lifted his hand, and she guided it to the side of his head above his ear. He made note of the fact that Fennit’s hands were rough, but gentle, before feeling the length of his hair and wincing. “Too short.”

“Oops.”

“No oops!” he said, alarmed.

“Well I can’t fix it now. Move your hand.”

He did so, pouting. “I should have just done it myself. I could have found a mirror.”

“Whine, whine. Listen, I can either do the other side right and you’ll look a little lopsided, or I can do something a bit different.”

“Is something different going to look good?” he demanded.

“Ye of little faith. Of course it will.”

“Fine,” he sighed.

“You are so vain.”

“This level of charm takes careful maintenance.”

“Oh _charm?_ Is that what you call it?”

“This is not fair when you’re holding scissors so close to my eye,” he griped.

She laughed at this, and fell silent.

Despite his protests, he was glad to have Fennit’s skillful fingers in his hair. He’d tried to forget about sleeping with her the last couple of months, with varying levels of success, but at the moment he allowed his mind to wander. Gods she was lovely. He was fairly sure she had no idea exactly how lovely she was.

“All right, I think that’s good.” Fennit moved into view, and he dragged his thoughts back to the present. “What do you think?”

He ran his hands over his head. It seemed a little longer on top. “Different indeed. Does it look all right?”

“I think so.”

Garth frowned. “I want to see it. Do you have a mirror?”

“No.” She tapped her lip with the scissors. “Who has a mirror?”

“Any windows we could use?”

“Just the chapel.”

Garth shrugged and stood up, brushing stray hair off his shoulders. “That works.”

“You’re going to use the sacred window of the chapel as a mirror,” Fennit said, rolling her eyes.

“Sure, why not?” Garth started walking toward the door of the workshop.

Fennit followed him. “Base misuse of a holy relic is exactly what I thought I’d be doing today.”

Garth ran his hands over his head, trying to picture what his hair looked like. “See? Why complain?”

They made their way to the chapel. This early in the evening, and usually someone was praying or meditating inside, but tonight they were the only ones here, so Garth went straight to the window.

Again, the window was dark and blank, reflecting Garth’s face back in pieces. He moved his head from pane to pane, trying to get an idea of what Fennit had done. It was longer on top, longer than he was accustomed to, but he liked the way his curls looked. He combed them forward so they spilled over his forehead. Fetching. “Oh, I like this very much.”

“Are you going to start flirting with your own reflection now?” Fennit teased.

“I might. Look at that handsome devil.” He winked at himself, one of his eyes offset from the other by the leading in the glass. “Thank you, Fennit.”

“You’re welcome. Worth having sharp implements by your face?”

He turned to regard her. “I knew I could trust you. Wouldn’t trust anyone else.”

“Maybe someday you’ll tell me why,” she said, turning back down the aisle.

Garth frowned, not following in more ways than one. “What do you mean?”

She stopped, looking over her shoulder. “What do you mean, what do I mean?”

“Tell you why I don’t like knives by my head?” Garth said in disbelief.

“Well, yes,” Fennit said, as if he was simple.

“I should think that would be obvious.”

“Most people don’t think like that, Garth,” she said, turning all the way around and crossing her arms. “I can’t figure you out. And don’t think I haven’t noticed that you don’t talk about yourself. I know everyone’s life story except yours.”

Oh, this had taken a turn for the much worse. Fantastic. Garth could feel the window hanging behind him as if it were radiating heat. “I...that’s not so unusual.”

“It is here,” she said.

“I don’t know _your_ life story,” he countered. “And we’ve known each other for months.”

She looked troubled by this. “I don’t talk about it because it’s painful.”

“Then you understand why I don’t—”

“You’re not in pain, Garth,” she said, looking at him through narrowed eyes. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, most of the time.”

Gods smite him straight to hell. She knew. Or she knew enough. Maybe he could change the subject. “I didn’t know you were in pain.”

She pressed her lips together, thinking. Then she came back to stand beside him in front of the window, staring at him for a moment or two before lifting the sleeve of her tunic to her shoulder. There was a brand there, very old and stretched, in the shape of a capital i. “When I was young, my family’s debts were such that my siblings and I were sold into indenture. It wasn’t terrible, when my parents were alive and they come keep an eye on us, but when they died…” She turned so he could see her shoulder, and pulled back the collar of her tunic to reveal the top of some nasty old lash marks. “...the man I worked for decided he could do what he wished with me. For years.” She paused, facing him again. “Eventually I was free, but he promised to marry me. He...never did.” She lifted the bottom hem of her tunic to show her stomach, which was mottled by stripes, like a tiger. Stretch marks. “I bore him a daughter. And I loved her, with my whole heart, but she was often ill, and…and Adali died.” She let the hem of her tunic drop, taking a moment to collect herself. “So I left. And I came here, because it always seemed...safe.”

Garth was struck dumb. The only thought that deigned to show itself in his head was one that said, _First that cesspit of a human being wants her, and then you do. She can’t get a break._

“Painful,” he agreed finally. “I’m so sorry.”

Fennit smiled, a smile that wasn’t really a smile. “Adali would have been seven this year.”

Garth nodded, unsure, lost in the moment.

“Customarily, now it would be your turn,” she said. She was changing the subject, and not in a way Garth liked. 

He glanced, not at the door of the chapel, which would have been sensible, but at the window, hanging silent and dark beside them. He croaked, “I can’t.”

“What are you so ashamed of?” she asked.

“I’m not ashamed at all,” Garth said, which was the truth; he’d never regretted a thing.

“Then what are you afraid of?”

He could barely speak above a whisper. He hardly knew what he was saying anyway. “Consequences.”

Fennit looked disappointed. And that hurt, it hurt like his scars were burning in his skin. She nodded in sad understanding and started to turn toward the door of the chapel.

“Wait.” Garth took hold of her forearm. If he didn’t say something now, the whole truth would come crawling out of his mouth like a plague of frogs. Arkhitekton demanded honesty, so just this once, he’d be honest. “You want to know why I don’t like sharp things by my face.”

She sighed. “I want to know _you,_ Garth.”

“This is part and parcel,” he insisted, and let go of her arm to pull his shirt up, revealing the thin shiny line along his ribs. “Look, I used to make my living as an actor. And my friend—friend’s generous, actually, this other man I worked with—he wasn’t nearly as good with a sword as he said he was. He stabbed me onstage, on accident.”

Fennit looked at the scar, then at his face, and then back to the scar, examining it carefully. She reached out and ran her rough fingertips along it. “So you’re afraid of it happening again?”

“Yes,” Garth said, trying not to think about how his skin tingled at her touch. “That’s not the only reason, but it’s the main one.”

She pulled her hand away and let him drop his shirt, looking him again in the eye. “An actor. That makes a lot of sense.”

He felt surprisingly calm now. Things had turned out all right. He’d told the truth, and it was okay. “It’s not the only job I’ve ever had. Done plenty of other things too.”

“Which you don’t want to tell me,” she added.

“Don’t get this twisted, Fennit, please,” he said, rubbing the back of his newly shorn head. “You know more than anyone at this point. I trust you.”

She considered this, still looking uneasy.

“I mean, just look at my hair!” he said, flinging pointing fingers at his head. “I trusted you with my hair. And it looks incredible.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Fennit admitted, reaching up to muss it or fix it, one of the two. “You are very attached to your hair.”

The moment she touched him again, he couldn’t stop himself; he caught her hand with one of his, and cupped her face with the other, and kissed her, so softly.

He opened his eyes to check on her—she looked surprised, but not unpleasantly so, a little short of breath. Perfect. He leaned forward for another.

But Fennit turned her face away, pulling her hand out of his. “No, Garth.”

“No?” he entreated her.

“Do you expect me to take this seriously?” she said quietly, looking away at the floor.

Reality came blundering into this small, soft moment, ripping it open. He took half a step back. “I don’t suppose I do.”

She nodded, as if she expected as much. “Good night, Garth.”

He watched her leave the chapel as if his feet were nailed to the floor, before turning and slapping his hand against the window with a strangled noise. He laid his forehead beside his hand on the uneven glass.

***

The last month of being an acolyte passed very slowly.

After a couple of days of silence, wherein Garth tried to give her space, Fennit did speak to him again; this time it was she who tried to pretend nothing happened. Garth played along, because the alternative was too terrible, but his mind was already elsewhere. What was to stop him from leaving now? There was really no reason to “finish his training,” as though he would actually be choosing a vocation.

He knew the answer to that question, though, even if he didn’t want to put words to it. Fennit was still here.

One by one, the days ran out.

***

“Divine magic is difficult,” Mother Jori was saying to the acolytes, who were gathered outside the monastery in an open clearing. “The experience of channeling divine power is slightly different for everyone, and only a few ever learn how to do it well. We will try today, but do not be discouraged if you cannot manage it this first time, or even your second or third. This is only preliminary to your vocational training.”

Garth was only sort of listening. It was the first really nice day in spring, and the sun was making him feel slightly better. Soon he’d be back on the road, an itinerant gambler once again. Or maybe he’d go back to acting. The wage was piss poor, but he could supplement, and at least it was fun. He didn’t need much these days anyway.

He glanced at Fennit, sitting beside him on the grass, listening intently. This might be the first time he left somewhere that he’d have rather stayed.

“Remember, all you are doing is asking that Arkhitekton lend you some of their power,” Morther Jori went on. “Pray honestly. Spread out, please, and give it a try.”

Garth and his fellow acolytes got to their feet, spreading across the clearing. Pray honestly. The thought made him furious today. He hadn’t done any actual praying in his whole time as an acolyte. Better not risk the ire of a god he was cheating. Not today, though.

He found a spot near the edge of the clearing by the trees, took a breath, and closed his eyes.

Do you even know who I am? he prayed. They say you already know our life stories. You certainly heard mine. So what is wrong with you? Why do you keep letting me get away with it?

He heard no answer, only the nearby trees rustling with a slight breeze, and the murmuring of a couple of his fellow acolytes’ inaudible prayers. No signs or wonders.

He gritted his teeth. Do you hear me? I’m a liar! I’m making a mockery of your name! Aren’t you angry about that? Why don’t you just strike me down where I stand?

Garth held out a hand. Go on, do it. I dare you. Put me out of my misery.

Suddenly his medallion, hanging under his shirt, went cold, cold enough to burn his skin. _Yes,_ there it was, finally. His just desserts. Consequences.

But instead of the lightning strike he expected, there was a sudden weight in his outstretched hand. He closed his fist around it automatically and opened his eyes.

He held a sword...sort of a sword. It seemed almost transparent, immaterial, as if it was made of negative space rather than metal. It was a longsword, hand-and-a-half, and if he had to name a color then he’d say it was black with white decorative accents, but that was hardly even true enough to describe it.

“What the hell—” escaped his mouth, and suddenly everyone else was looking at him.

“Well done, Acolyte Garth!” Mother Jori said from across the clearing.

He dropped the sword, and it dissipated into shadow before it hit the ground. The other acolytes were clapping, talking to him, but he couldn’t hear any of it. “But—but—”

“Looks like someone’s vocation is leaning toward paladin.” Mother Jori’s voice cut through the noise as she approached him. “That was very impressive.”

“No, no, you—you don’t understand,” he said, weariness settling over him like a blanket. “I didn’t—that wasn’t me!”

“Divine magic is never really about us,” Mother Jori said, and though her voice was soft, the sentence hit him like a buckler to his gut. “Why don’t you sit down, Acolyte?”

He did what she said, dropping to the grass, head in his hands.

_Why?_


	5. Trainee

Garth had declared his vocation as paladin. It was easiest that way, after the incident with the magic sword. Clerics would be traveling to a seminary, a week away on foot, and monks would be off to an enclave deep in the woods, but paladins were to stay. It was going to be easier to leave from here.

The day the clerics left was cloudy and cold, which reflected Garth’s mood, but he did his best not to show it. No reason to bring Fennit down on what was supposed to be an exciting day for her.

The group of cleric hopefuls got ready early in the morning, but not so early that they slipped off without saying goodbye. Even so, Garth nearly missed it. Grudgingly, forcing a spring into his step, he dragged himself out of bed to the caravan of horses and people. It looked like they were almost ready to go; he spotted Fennit saying goodbye to some of his fellow trainee paladins. The monks had left yesterday.

She saw him and broke off to approach him. “There you are. I knew it was too much to ask to leave without hearing from you.”

“Yes, I’m like a disease,” Garth said solemnly, and she laughed. “No, I wanted to make sure I saw you off.”

“I appreciate that,” Fennit said, smiling at him. Blinding him, more or less. “I think I shall miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too,” he said, probably a little too earnestly. “Thank you for...everything. Being my friend.”

She looked a little amused. “Garth, we belong to the same order. We will almost certainly see each other again.”

Gods, Garth wished that were true. He was going to leave the monastery tonight. “Of course, of course. But I do mean it.”

“Then...thank you too,” she said, hooking a stray curl behind her ear. “You mean a lot to me, Garth.”

“You mean a lot to me, Fennit,” Garth returned.

She hugged him then, too quickly for him to do anything but accept it, to bury his face in her neck and try to memorize the warmth of her against him, the smell of her hair, the feel of her presence close to him. His chest ached.

She released him, which was both merciful and horrible, and looked off to one side, avoiding his eyes. “Garth, I...um.”

“Yes?” Garth said, frowning a little. Capitulating was unlike her.

She took a quick breath, stood up a little straighter, and looked him in the eye. “If you ever change your mind about wanting to be taken seriously, let me know.”

The sentence smacked him like a wet tarp. His stomach did a backflip. “I...um. Uhh…” 

Her mouth quirked into a little smile. “No sarcasm? Witty comeback?”

“I-I’m—I’m all out,” Garth stuttered.

“Good lord, it took an entire year, but we finally did it,” Fennit said in mock awe.

Garth laughed then. “They said it couldn’t be done!”

“Well we are in the miracle business,” Fennit said seriously.

The call went up from the caravan to go. Garth felt his face fall. 

Fennit bit her lip. “Arkhitekton bless your hands, Garth.”

“Goodbye, Fennit,” Garth said, feeling the sentence pull his soul out along with it.

She joined the caravan, not looking back. Garth watched them until they were long out of sight through the monastery gates.

***

Garth packed up his things, feeling strangely nostalgic.

He unrolled his bedroll, thankful that he’d had the foresight to add some mothballs when he’d tried to escape last time, that first month of his tenure as an acolyte. There were coins scattered here and there in its folds; he collected most of them and added them to the little leather bag that he’d sewn from scraps while he worked for the tanner. His old purse was long gone, given to Petras. The rest of his coin he hid about his person and folded back up into his bedroll. He dug through his old clothes and put on the worse of his two pairs of breeches, the one with the repaired hole where his scar had burned through. He checked the pockets; his loaded dice were here. He’d forgotten about them. Idly, he rolled them on the floor and got an eight, before slipping them back into his pocket.

His old things were sparse, designed for light travel, but he had some new things too. His plain acolyte’s cassock, never his first choice for wear, but might be useful. A new pair of boots he’d assisted in making. Some rope, a few candles, a utility knife he’d been given when his old one broke off its handle. Pencils, pens, a penknife, and a little notebook too, that the monk who was the main clerk had given him, despite his protests. A tiny wooden rabbit that Fennit had whittled for him that made him laugh. He stowed each item away amongst his other things, except for the rabbit, which he put in the pocket with the loaded dice.

Then there was the medallion. He took it off and looked at it, proclaiming the stalwart nature of Arkhitekton on one side and the cheating, lying past of this mortal on the other.

If he left it here, it’d be a clear sign that he’d abandoned his pursuit of his god. Maybe it didn’t matter what everyone else thought of him, but word might get around to Fennit. She’d be disappointed. _He’d_ be disappointed, really. No, better to take it with him, disappear mysteriously, and have the reminder of this year for himself. He slipped that into his pocket too.

Garth hauled his bag onto one shoulder. It seemed light, but it always did when one started travel. It’d be heavy enough soon. He paused at his own door.

This would be the longest he’d stayed in one place since...since he left home to be a soldier. No wonder he was feeling nostalgic. Then it was well past time to be moving on. He opened the door.

And froze, because right outside in the hall was Mother Jori, pausing in the act of walking by.

“Oh. Hello, Garth,” she said, her moon-like face looking even rounder with surprise.

“Evening,” he said, managing to keep his tone light. Dammit.

“Can’t sleep?” she asked him.

“No, Mother Jori,” he said. Maybe he could wait another hour or so to leave.

She nodded. “Take a walk with me, won’t you?”

_Dammit._ “Oh, no, I should probably just...go back to bed—”

“I insist,” she said.

Garth let his pack slide off his shoulder while trying to keep his spine completely rigid. “Oh, well. If you don’t mind the company.” He caught the strap and gently lowered it to the floor.

“I’d be glad of it.” She started walking.

He shut the door behind him and caught up to her. She said nothing, only led him down the hall and out of the dormitory building onto the monastery grounds. They walked along the inside of the wall in the dark, past the gardens and workshops, in discomfiting silence.

“Do you...often go walking this late?” Garth attempted, because the quiet was driving him mad.

“It helps sometimes,” she said. “I’m very bad at sleeping, it turns out. Especially this time of year.”

Garth frowned. Mid-spring wasn’t a bad time of year, though, it was a good time, when winter was finally over but before things got nasty and hot in summer. It was almost as good as fall. “How come?”

“Oh, it’s just my yearly existential crisis,” she said, waving a hand as if this were the most natural thing in the world. “Am I doing the right thing with my life? Have I misunderstood my calling? Am I certain this is what Arkhitekton requires of me? Et cetera.”

“This happens to you every year?” Garth said.

“Without fail!” Her tone was chipper, but she was rolling her eyes. “It’s the turnover of acolytes that does it. New ones coming in, old ones becoming paladins. Not to say it’s your fault, you and yours, Garth.” She patted his shoulder. “This is decidedly my problem.”

Garth wondered if what he was thinking was too frank to say, but then again, he was leaving. What the hell. “It seems odd to me that someone who’s been a cleric for so long would wrestle with the same thing over and over.”

“It’s an artifact of my nature, I think,” she said, sighing. “No matter how much growing I do, I am still me.”

Garth...understood that.

“I’m actually a paladin, as it happens,” she added. “Not a cleric, although I see why you might be confused about that.”

“You?” Garth said without thinking.

“Hard to believe, isn’t it?” she said flatly.

Oops. That had been the wrong thing to say. “I’ve just never seen you with...you know, armor or a weapon.”

“I don’t typically wear armor in my own home,” she said, waving a hand to indicate the monastery. “But I’m never really unarmed.”

Garth glanced at her, puzzled. She definitely wasn’t carrying any weapons. There was nothing on her belt, and her cassock hugged her form fairly closely, unlikely to be concealing anything.

“Say, that spirit sword of yours,” she said. “Have you tried to summon that again?”

Garth felt his hackles raise at this unwelcome change in subject. “I haven’t.”

“It’s fairly rare for someone of your skill level to be able to do that, you know,” she prattled. “Usually it takes a studious cleric to pull something like that off. Not a typical paladin ability.”

What the hell was her point? “Oh?”

“In fact, I’ve only seen it one other time.”

Hm. That was interesting, he’d grant her that. “When was that?”

She stopped walking, and took a slow breath, in and out. Garth stopped as well, confused, but she held out her hand—

A glowing yellow spear, made of light and negative space and outlined in red, appeared in her hand. With skill borne of long practice, she spun it once in her hand and planted the butt in the dirt beside her feet.

Garth was struck dumb. He reached out to touch it automatically, which she allowed. It felt like wood and metal, but he couldn’t reconcile that with its ethereal appearance. “What does it...what does it mean?”

“When I know that, I think I’ll finally be able to sleep,” she said dryly. “What do you think it means?”

Garth took his hand away and shoved it into his pocket. His fingers brushed against his medallion, and he sighed. “I think it means Arkhitekton is laughing at me.”

Mother Jori smiled a wry smile. “I would not put that past them.” She let go of her spear, and it disintegrated into shards of light as he watched. “May I see your sword?”

Oh _sure,_ why not? One last time, since he didn’t mean to use it ever again after this. If he could do it, that is. He took a step away from Mother Jori and held out his hand. “Uhh...do I just pray, then?”

“That’s how I do it,” she said patiently.

All right. Garth closed his eyes. Well? he thought. Let’s have it, then.

He was hoping it wouldn’t work, or that his tone would be disagreeable enough to make Arkhitekton angry, but no, the cold metal weight appeared in his hand, and he grasped it and opened his eyes.

There was the sword, the same shape as before, although this time it was more purplish than black, and the accents on the hilt looked more subtle. He frowned. “It’s different.”

“It’ll change a bit over time,” she said, examining the blade carefully. “I think these weapons reflect your attitude.”

A wave of weariness washed over Garth; he grunted and stumbled a little, letting go of the sword and letting it shatter into smoke. Mother Jori caught hold of his shoulder. “Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot. Magic really takes it out of you when you’re new at it. Let’s get you back to bed.”

He allowed her to lead him back to his cell, suddenly too tired to do anything else. She bid him good night, and he shuffled into the room and fell into bed.

When he woke up, he could hear people moving in the hall. Morning, then. He sat up, and saw his pack, lying by the door where he’d left it last night.

_Dammit._

***

Where acolytes learned theology in the mornings and worked trades in the afternoons, trainee paladins did the opposite. Garth was a little disappointed that his march of mediocrity through the trades of the monastery wasn’t over, but one of the tenets of being a paladin of Arkhitekton was that you were not a sellsword. Paladins were allowed to accept donations if people insisted, but their living was to be made primarily from physical work rather than spiritual. If that meant turning Garth into the world’s most underwhelming odd jobs man, the monastery seemed to think, then so be it.

Another of the tenets, one that surprised him, was that they weren’t primarily to serve the worshippers of Arkhitekton. Anywhere people were in danger, the paladins were obligated to help however they could, and however they were asked to as well. He hadn’t met many paladins—he’d actively avoided them, in fact, seeing as they had things like morals and big swords—but he didn’t think that was typical.

He found himself, to his horror, asking questions.

“What if you’re asked to arbitrate an argument and you don’t know who’s right or who’s telling the truth?” he asked Mother Jori one day.

“There are magical means to aid you in finding truth, which you’ll learn later,” Mother Jori said.

“But what if both parties _think_ they’re telling the truth and saying totally opposite things?” Garth demanded. “No spell can fix a person’s perspective.”

Mother Jori conceded this point. “In that case, personally, I would pray for guidance and do what I thought was best.”

“What if you find out later that you helped the wrong person and made things worse?” Garth said. He would back her into a corner one of these days, he knew it.

“Then you are obligated to go back and make things right,” Mother Jori said, not missing a beat.

Only half the time was study of codes and values, though. The other half was combat training.

***

Garth did not want to fight. He never wanted to fight. He deserted from the army specifically so that he could stop fighting. He never carried a weapon larger than a knife after he’d sold his sword and armor. Any situation you could not get out of by quick thinking was a situation you’d brought upon yourself, in his opinion.

The first day of training was to gauge their skill level, they’d been told. They were to assemble their own armor and weaponry from the monastery’s two-room practice armory and proceed to the training ground for testing.

The armor the monks offered was mostly plate, old but well maintained, buffed and polished under the scratches. He put on what was offered without thinking about it, and then realized he was the first one of the eight paladins to finish doing so. Oops. Rather than hang around watching everyone else struggle, he moved on to the next room, where the weapons were.

They had quite the selection, which surprised him. He would assume things would be a little more uniform, but then again, his point of comparison was the army.

A monk stood by, straightening a rack of halberds. “Help you find something?” she asked.

“Maybe.” He let his eyes slide over the tables and racks. “What are we supposed to choose?”

“Whatever is comfortable,” the monk said, and held out a hand. “Shields are there, blades are there, longer weapons over here, and miscellany there.”

“Thank you,” Garth said, taking a wander along the path the monk’s hand indicated.

Shield? No. Shields tended to be the first thing he dropped. Better to have his hands free. He moved onto knives and daggers. There were a neat little pair of dirks, finely crafted. Don’t mind if he did.

He should probably have a real weapon too, though, shouldn’t he? Longswords, shortswords...nothing caught his eye until he reached the end of a rack. A hand-and-a-half blade, simply made and deadly sharp.

Garth sighed. All right. He took it.

“Garth?” Letty, one of the paladin trainees, a tall lanky girl who was no older than seventeen, poked her head into the weapons room. “Can you tell me if my armor’s right?”

“Why do you think I’d know?” he asked, tying the sword onto his belt.

She gestured at his armored body.

Again, he sighed. “Fine.”

Letty wasn’t the only person who asked. He should have refused, he thought, weighing a couple of shields in his hands and handing the lighter one off to old Derkin. 

“So you can clerk and you can outfit,” said Letty thoughtfully, testing out a shortsword he’d recommended. “Were you somebody’s squire?”

“Mm, no, a quartermaster, I’d bet,” Derkin said, sliding the shield onto their arm.

“It’d be a very foolish...anybody, to trust me with that sort of responsibility, Derkin,” Garth said, which made them both chuckle.

He was tipping his hand. It probably didn’t matter, since he’d leave soon, but still.

The newly outfitted trainee paladins made their way to the training grounds. To Garth’s surprise most of the monastery was lined up along the fence, with two monks inside, each handling a few weapons each. In the center, armored and holding a spear, was Mother Jori.

“All right, trainees,” Mother Jori said. “This is to test your limits. I am going to do a little sparring with each of you. Do not be afraid of hurting me, and I promise not to hurt you, but I would like you to treat this as much like a real fight as you can.”

Garth managed to keep from rolling his eyes. His goal today was to skate along in the middle of the herd, and he fancied himself a good enough actor to accomplish that. No fear of him hurting Mother Jori.

“Letty, if you would come forward, please. Draw your weapon.”

The girl stepped out into the training circle, drawing her shortsword inexpertly. Mother Jori marked the weapon, tossed her spear to one of the monks standing by, and accepted a shortsword from the other.

It occurred to Garth that none of the other trainees knew that Mother Jori was a paladin. All they saw was the round-faced middle-aged woman who had been patiently teaching them for a year. That was...devious.

Garth was suddenly struck by an unfamiliar sort of admiration.

“Nice and slow to start, all right?” Mother Jori said to Letty. “I’ll begin by attacking. All you have to do is block.”

“Yes, Mother Jori,” Letty said earnestly, sinking into what Garth could only assume she thought was a fighting pose.

Slowly, Mother Jori sent three blows to Letty, high, middle, low. Glowering in furious concentration, she blocked each one.

“Good,” Mother Jori said. “Your instincts are good.” She sent a few more, which Letty did also blocked. She had potential. “Good. Your turn.”

Letty screwed up her face in concentration and stabbed at Mother Jori. With the tiniest motion, almost too small to see, Mother Jori twisted her sword from her hand and deposited it into the dust. The gathered crowd of monks made approving noises.

Letty looked shocked. “Oh.”

“Yes. A beginner, then, no shame in that, Letty. You did well.”

One by one, the trainees stepped forward, and one by one, they were unceremoniously and swiftly beaten by Mother Jori. She’d start each of them out with basic striking and blocking, then worked her way to patterns, then combinations of patterns, and then, if she hadn’t judged them wanting yet, into full sparring. Some of them had indeed had training, although few with this much armor; Derkin held their own for a good long while until Mother Jori bashed their sword from their hands with her shield and caught them at the end of her blade. The monks on the sidelines were apparently just here to watch Mother Jori surprise everyone; every time she won a particularly good victory, they whooped and clapped.

They had gotten through five of the eight before Garth began to suspect that he was going last. All the better, then, to scope out what the others could do. He decided Limited Expertise With An Unfamiliar Weapon was his best bet. He would go with Unsuitable Weapon, but he wasn’t sure he could sneak that past Mother Jori, since she’d seen him summon a hand-and-a-half sword out of thin air twice. She was…extremely good at fighting, actually. All he had to do was let her beat him.

As he suspected, he was last. Mother Jori had hardly broken a sweat when she called him up to the circle. She traded the halberd she’d just finished with for a longsword. “You really like those bastard swords, don’t you, Garth?”

“It’s what I’m used to,” Garth said, drawing the selfsame sword and holding it two-handed. He shifted his grip, as if he was uncertain of it, even though through his gloves he could feel the balance and heft of it. Two-handed wasn’t his preference, but all the better to lose with.

She walked him through basics, then patterns, and Garth matched her with proficiency. He could feel the monks on the fence and his fellow trainees watching him. Acting.

Mother Jori seemed satisfied with his performance in basics. “Ready to spar?”

“I think so,” Garth said. All right, careful now.

She smiled, and charged.

They traded blows, swords clanging off each other. Garth stuck mostly to the defensive here, only trying for the safest openings. You know what would have been really good, he thought, knocking Mother Jori’s blade away from his face, is if he’d had a couple of drinks before he’d done this.

Mother Jori was speeding up. All right, now was the time. He loosened his grip, and brought down the sword toward her head.

Effortlessly, she twisted the blade from his hand, and it flew, shining in the sun, into the air and onto the ground.

The monks clapped appreciatively, and Garth held up his hands. “Mercy?”

“Hm.” Mother Jori lowered her blade, looking dissatisfied. “Disarmed you so soon?”

“What can I say?” Garth said, shrugging, looking around for his sword. There it was. “You’re an excellent combatant.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t think so.”

And she swung her longsword at his head.

Garth jumped backward. “Wait—what are you doing!”

“What does it look like?” she shouted, and did it again.

Again, Garth backpedaled, hearing the whistle of the sword as it narrowly missed his face. “You said you weren’t going to hurt us!”

“I changed my mind!” She threw the point of her sword toward a gap in his armor—

Garth didn’t think. He sidled out of the way and seized her arm, her hand slamming against him hard enough to drop her blade, and then let go just in time to throw his boot into her breastplate.

Mother Jori hit the ground and slid, the monks on the sidelines murmuring and protesting with concern. Garth was frozen— _why had he done that, dammit, dammit—_

And then, from the ground, Mother Jori began to laugh.

Vaguely, Garth tried to remember a time he had been more scared of an opponent.

She rolled into a crouch and stood up. “Oh, very well done there. Go on, get your sword.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think I want to.”

Mother Jori held out a hand to one of the monks, who tossed her spear into the air. She caught it with ease and lowered it at him. “Die, then.”

All the blood drained from his face. She ran at him with a wild battlecry, and he dove toward his blade’s resting place, somersaulting and coming up kneeling, just in time to knock away a blow that would have shish-kebabed him. _Stand up stand up stand up_ —he managed to shimmy backward far enough to hop to his feet, and then had to dance away from another jab. He forced the point of her spear upward and rushed in to cut her down, but she blocked the blow with the shaft and pushed him back into spearpoint range. He dodged once, twice; she twirled the spear to sweep his feet with the butt, and he jumped over it; she brought the head back around toward his face, and he ducked. She was twisted away from him, just for a moment, so bracing the blade against his gloved hand he slammed his pommel into her helmet. He heard her grunt, and then saw her move, but was too late to do anything as the shaft of her spear whacked him in the back, hard enough to make him stumble away from her and disengage.

For a moment, both of them panting, they circled each other.

“You’ve been holding out on us,” Mother Jori said merrily.

“I didn’t want this,” Garth rasped in return.

“Then you ought to finish it.” And she charged again.

Garth threw his shoulder forward, allowing the spearpoint to glance off his armor to get inside her range, and threw his arm around the shaft to get control of it—unfortunately that was his sword arm, so all he could do was punch, and that he did. She took the hit with a sneer, and then leveraged him to the side with her spear, throwing him to the ground. He landed hard, the wind knocked out of him, and lost hold of his sword.

As if from far away, he heard a cheer go up from the monks, but his gut told him to roll, and it was a good thing he did; Mother Jori’s spearpoint hit the dust where his neck had been. He got from his hands and knees to his feet—no idea where his sword was, so he drew a dirk instead, just in time to deflect another stab that knocked it clean out of his hand. Again, Mother Jori swept his feet, and this time he was too slow to jump, and down he went, flat on his back, drawing the second dirk only to have it batted to the dust by the spear butt. The point leveled at his throat.

Chest heaving, trying not to move his eyes from the face that rose like the moon into his view, Garth raised his hands in surrender.

For a full second, he was certain Mother Jori was going to kill him.

Then she let go a breath, and took her spear from his throat, tossing it back to a monk. “Well done, Garth.”

He relaxed, letting his head hit the ground and weariness roll over him. On the sidelines he could hear the monks cheering and applauding. A hand appeared above him. He took it, and Mother Jori pulled him to his feet. She was smiling broadly, and she had the beginnings of a very nice black eye from where he’d punched her. “I haven’t had a fight like that in ages. I appreciate the challenge.”

Garth said nothing, trying to process what just happened, what it all meant—

“That was amazing!” said Derkin, and Garth suddenly realized that he was surrounded by the other trainees, slapping him on the back and congratulating him.

“Can you teach me how to do that?” Letty asked, tugging on his arm. “The thing where you grabbed her arm and made her drop her sword—”

“No!” Garth said sharply, before he realized he was saying it, before he realized how _angry_ he was. “Let me through.”

“Okay but—”

He didn’t stop to hear what Letty said; he pushed past the other trainees, past Mother Jori, back toward the armory to shed his metal skin.

***

His things were still mostly packed from when he’d tried to leave the last time, so there was plenty of time for him to simmer down some.

That anger had been very old and out-of-date anger. Rather unfashionable anger, really. It was embarrassing. He felt he had a better hold of himself now, creeping out of his door, looking first to make sure Mother Jori wasn’t out in the hall again.

With the coast clear, he made his way out of the dormitory building into the dark. He turned a corner toward the wall and nearly ran headlong into Mother Jori.

“Oh!” she said. Her black eye was purpling beautifully. “Evening, Garth. Couldn’t sleep again?”

“Actually, I’m leaving,” Garth said stiffly. “Don’t try to stop me.”

“You’re really leaving this time?” Mother Jori said, raising an eyebrow.

Garth pressed his lips together. So he hadn’t been as sneaky as he thought. He would never underestimate Mother Jori again, for any reason. “Yes.”

She looked thoughtful for a moment. “I won’t try to stop you. But would you take a turn about the wall with me? Before you go?”

“Why?”

“Is the fact that I could make you stay reason enough?” Her tone was so casual for something that Garth now knew to be a serious threat.

Garth shrugged. “What the hell.”

The two of them walked along the wall. Just make it all the way around, and you can leave, Garth thought.

“May I ask why?” Mother Jori said.

“I’ve been meaning to for a long time.”

“But you didn’t.”

“There were extenuating circumstances.”

“Like Fennit?”

Some of that dusty old anger flared up again. Hush, he told it. “You don’t know what you think you know.”

“I know what she told me, that’s all.”

Oh gods, Fennit, _why?_ To his horror, he could feel himself blushing like a godsdamned schoolboy. At least it was dark… “What did she...tell you?”

“The facts as they happened,” Mother Jori said simply. “And some feelings about those facts that I am not going to share. Suffice to say, I understand you trying to leave a few days ago, but why now?”

“It’s time, that’s all.” Please stop blushing.

“It’s not because I beat you today, is it?”

Garth frowned. “I tried to throw the fight. Give me a little credit.”

“Yes, I’m puzzled about that too.”

“I don’t have to explain myself.”

“You certainly don’t.”

They walked in silence for a few moments before Garth sighed. “I hate fighting. I hate it.”

“That’s why you’re leaving?”

“That’s why I tried to throw the fight.”

“Mm.” Mother Jori considered this. “Then why become a paladin?”

Garth told a half-truth. “I didn’t think I would get this far.”

Her mouth twisted into an ironic little smile. “I think I understand that.”

Garth doubted it.

“It’s just a shame,” she went on. “I was about to ask for your help.”

“Help with what?” Garth said cautiously.

“We don’t usually have this many trainees, and I haven’t been able to find a new assistant for this year,” she said, laying out her points one by one. “Now to teach theology and such we can recruit some of the monks—and I will, especially for the new acolytes—but with three beginners, combat practice will be tricky. I was hoping you could assist me.”

“You want me to teach other people how to do a thing that I hate,” Garth said, his tone flat.

“Yes. Better that than all of them get the short shrift because I am only one person.”

“No.”

“You are very good, especially at defensive fighting,” Mother Jori went on, as if she hadn’t heard him. “That’s really what they need at this point. It is my responsibility to equip them to defend their faith and those in need, and I’d hate to force them to train for longer just because of me. Or worse, send them out into the world underprepared.”

“Are you trying to make me feel guilty for not helping you?” Garth asked.

“Is it working?” She smiled at him.

“This is _not_ my problem,” he scoffed.

“No,” she said. “It’s not.”

They had reached the place where they started along the wall, and Garth almost bolted over it immediately. It would have been the sensible option. But he hesitated.

The last time he’d had a responsibility like this, he’d had less than no choice in the matter. In fact, every time he’d ever had a responsibility, it wasn’t something he’d chosen, it was thrust upon him for no discernable reason and completely against his will. This felt different.

Arkhitekton strike him down, he didn’t actually _care_ about these people, did he? No, no, that wasn’t it. He would just be...doing a favor for an influential member of a small god’s order.

“How long?” he sighed.

“Ideally, the whole year,” Mother Jori said. “But if you’re anxious to leave, then...could I possibly convince you of six months?”

“Ughhh.” Garth rubbed his forehead. “Fine. Six months. Then I’m gone.”

“Thank you, Garth.” Mother Jori laid a hand on his arm. “I mean that. It’s going to make a big difference.”

“Whatever. I’d better get some sleep.” He turned back to the dormitory building. “I’m going to need it.”

“Shall I make sure Fennit hears of how helpful you are?” Mother Jori called after him.

Garth covered his face in his hands and groaned.


	6. Paladin

“What are we going to do today, Garth?” asked Letty.

Garth stepped up beside the training dummy and looked at his three students in their neat armor with a feeling like being dragged to his death by suspiciously strong snails: an agonizing march toward a terrible fate. Letty was joined by Rukes, a thirty-something former farmer who was very displeased by having Garth as his teacher rather than Mother Jori, and Frisewide, a woman a little younger than Garth from two kingdoms away who didn’t speak much of the common tongue. Garth was never sure how much she understood of what he said, but she was learning. At least she followed directions, and Letty was up for practically any new challenge, but Rukes kvetched and complained about everything Garth told him to do.

“We’re using shields offensively today,” said Garth, trying not to seem like the sentence was being dragged out of him. This was easily the second worst job he’d ever had, second only to being a soldier. “Do you all know when we’d use a shield as a weapon?”

Letty raised her hand. Eager beaver. “If you’re trying to give yourself space? Push someone away?”

“Yes, good,” Garth said, and Letty lit up. “When else?”

“Mm, shield bash? Yes?” Frisewide said, demonstrating with her shield.

“Yes,” Garth said, “when—”

“If your sword...on ground,” she attempted.

“Yeah, yes, if you’re disarmed, exactly.” Good, she was tracking today. He was almost afraid to ask the next bit, but he could sense that he was losing Rukes’ interest. “What about you, Rukes?”

Rukes rolled his eyes and scoffed. “What’s the use of a shield bash? I could just stab somebody.”

Yep, here they went. “So, what, you think you don’t need to learn this?” 

“You don’t use a shield,” Rukes said.

This was the problem with staying, is people now knew things about him. “I don’t use a shield because I know how to use them and I don’t like them.” Garth leaned against the training dummy companionably. “When you have my expertise, you can also have the luxury of choosing your own armament, but until then—”

“It just doesn’t make any sense to extend a fight if you have the opportunity to end it,” Rukes said, drawing his sword. “If I can do this—” he attempted a fairly poor shield bash— “Then I can do this instead.” He slashed with his sword.

Garth saw Letty and Frisewide settling in for an argument. He sucked on his lip for a moment. Well if they wanted a show, they could have a show.

“All right, let’s do this your way for a second.” He changed his posture, gesticulating grandly. “Hello, brave paladin, I am the headman of this village, and my son has been stolen away from me by a dangerous highwayman. May I ask for your help?”

Rukes gave him a Look. “Seriously?”

“Play along, Rukes, I’m getting to the point,” Garth said, waving a hand at him.

Rukes sighed. “All right, sure thing, village headman, I’ll rescue your son.”

“Ah, thank you, I don’t know what I would have done without you,” Garth effused, and Letty giggled. Good. He changed his posture again. “So you go after this highwayman, and you find him here.” Garth laid his hands on the dummy’s shoulders. “He’s taken by surprise, and draws his sword, but you right away see an opening, and, rather than use your shield, you…”

Rukes realized this was his cue, and stabbed the dummy fiercely.

“Nice hit,” Garth said, and toppled the dummy to the ground. “Look at that, you killed him. Very efficient. Except, oops!” Garth changed his posture again, took a couple steps back, and skipped toward the “dead” dummy. “Oh my dearest love, it’s me! The headman’s son, back from collecting wood, and oh my gods!” Garth dropped to his knees. “He’s dead! You killed my love!” 

“What?” Rukes looked blindsided. “No I didn’t!”

“You did!” wailed Garth. “You killed the man who rescued me from the hands of my abusive father!”

“Oohhhh,” crowed Letty.

“That’s—that wouldn’t happen,” sputtered Rukes.

“Maybe not.” Garth dropped character and jumped back to his feet. “But maybe the highwayman sold him into indenture. Too late to ask where now, he’s dead. Or maybe the highwayman killed him. You’ll never know.”

“But I was told he was a highwayman!”

“And instead of using your head, you used the sword,” Garth said. “You jumped to conclusions.”

“Not everything we do is going to be this complicated,” Rukes protested.

“See that’s where you’re wrong,” Garth said, stepping dangerously close to Rukes. “You are going to be a paladin of a god whose primary domain is life lived. And you’re trying to tell me that ending that life for the sake of—what, efficiency? Impatience?—is your decision?”

“If they’re bad—” Rukes began.

“And you’re going to be able to tell just by looking?” Garth scoffed. “Who are you, Arkhitekton?”

Rukes was struck dumb. Garth didn’t look away.

“So...stab first, ask questions later, is no good?” Frisewide said.

Garth did look up then, stepping away from Rukes to do it. “Exactly.”

“Not like you could say much even if you did buy time to talk,” muttered Rukes.

“Rukes, if you can’t admit you’re wrong, the least courtesy you could give us is shutting up,” Garth said, picking up the practice dummy. “All right. Let’s practice shieldwork for real this time.”

Letty caught up to him outside the armory after their armor and weapons were all put away. She walked beside him toward the common hall. “That story you told about the village headman was you, wasn’t it?”

Garth gave her an alarmed look. How did _she_ know? “What are you talking about?”

“I think you used to be a mercenary,” she said. “And I think you were the man who stabbed someone innocent before you knew all the information.”

Garth sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. There was no use in telling her that in today’s example he’d been analogous to the practice dummy, desperately trying to buy time to talk people out of killing him. “I wasn’t a mercenary, Letty.”

“Really?” She tsked. “I was sure about that one.”

“You wouldn’t be worried if a former merc was teaching you how to fight?” Garth said skeptically.

“It doesn’t matter now,” she said. “We all belong to Arkhitekton.”

Garth pressed his lips together. Do we, now?

***

And thusly did time pass, in training and teaching, in working and learning. As before, things settled into a rhythm, although Garth found this one significantly less fun. There was a little satisfaction in seeing Frisewide, Rukes, and Letty become proficient in a number of weapons beyond the point of “sharp end pointed at the bad guy,” but it also horrified him. He taught them everything he could about defense, deflection, nonlethal tactics, and he found himself praying—praying!—that the nonlethal became their go-to, because he didn’t want to live in a world where Letty, a veritable child, spilled someone’s blood out onto the earth.

And yet he was glad, because at least it was him training them. He did some of his own training with Mother Jori one-on-one, and her style, with him at least, was to goad, to draw out, to enrage. Garth hoped she didn’t teach the trainees like this, but in case she did, at least he could spare the beginners from it.

Six months was almost up when the trainee paladins were told that it would soon be time for the vigil.

“A full night of contemplation at the chapel,” Mother Jori explained. “After which you will write your vows to Arkhitekton. When your vows are made, you will receive direction from the order. Most of you need further training in one thing or another, so the most common order will be to stay here and learn more. Don’t be discouraged if that is the case for you. Arkhitekton will send you out when you are ready.”

At that rate, Garth would spend his whole life in the monastery. Good thing he was leaving.

***

Bag packed, cell cleaned out, time to leave.

Garth should not have been surprised to find Mother Jori out beside the part of the wall he planned to climb over, but she still startled him. She wasn’t walking this time; she’d dragged a chair out beside the wall, and was holding a mug of tea, all bundled up against the fall chill and looking serene.

“Oh, hello,” she said, smiling.

Garth released a beleaguered sigh. “Couldn’t sleep again, eh?”

“Here to see you off.” She stood up and put her mug onto her seat. “Unless I can convince you to stay.”

“I did what you asked,” Garth mumbled. He didn’t know why he felt so small; he was easily a head and a half taller than Mother Jori. And it’s not as though she was being threatening. “Just let me leave.”

Mother Jori crossed her arms. “I don’t understand, Garth. Why? Do you really want to leave that badly?”

Garth winced. Not really. “It’s not that, it’s just—”

“You want to run off to Fennit, maybe?”

“Gods, no, she’s—it’s not about her.”

“A different vocation, then, since you hate fighting? You could be a cleric or monk—”

“No! That’s not the point—”

“Then why, Garth?”

“I don’t belong here!” The sentence burst out of him before he could stop it. It echoed.

She seemed nonplussed. “What makes you think that?”

He yanked his medallion from around his neck. “Look! Look.” He held it out to her, showing her the back. “I’m a...a cheat and a liar. A coward. See? I never felt any call to follow a god of—of the ordinary, of _work,_ that was a _lie._ I’ve never done real work—I never meant to stay at all!”

Mother Jori still seemed unrattled. She examined the medallion carefully, and then took off her own, and showed him the back.

In nauseating detail—detail that, Garth now knew, must have been the result of some incredible craftsmanship—Mother Jori’s medallion depicted a decapitated head, a half-elf man, eyes and jaw twisted open in a horrifying silent scream, impaled on a spear. It looked so real that it made Garth’s stomach lurch.

“You might be surprised who our god calls,” she said quietly.

Garth swallowed. His mouth was dry. “ _Your_ god. They didn’t call me.”

“The sword you can summon at will would suggest otherwise.” Mother Jori put her medallion back on carefully, straightening it to lay just under her clavicle. “They call all sorts. Ordinary, extraordinary—cheats and liars, thieves, politicians.” She glanced away. “Murderers. All sorts, Garth. Arkhitekton is the god of every life lived, not just the nice ones.”

“Why the hell would they want me?” Garth said. He felt suddenly hunted, the way he felt when it was time for a quick escape, but there was no escape here. You can’t run from a god.

“I don’t have answers. Only Arkhitekton can tell you that.” 

“They’re not exactly talkative,” Garth said through gritted teeth.

“Hmm.” She looked suddenly thoughtful. “Well. At the risk of sounding like I’m only here to make you stay...you may find the vigil enlightening. Most people do.”

“And if I stay for the vigil, I write vows and give them,” he grumbled. “And then I _definitely_ can’t leave.”

“Your sudden dedication to keeping vows is interesting,” Mother Jori said, nonchalant.

“I’ll be in an entirely different and worse kind of trouble if I’m found out as a fraud after I’ve sworn to be a paladin,” Garth shot back.

“You’ll have a few days after the vigil before vows. You can leave then.” She picked up her mug of tea from the chair behind her and sipped at it. “People do, sometimes. It’s not unusual.”

“Why are you so determined to make me stay?” Garth snapped.

“All things being equal, would you really want to go?”

The question nearly knocked the wind out of him. Would he?

“I don’t—I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter, because all things aren’t equal.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Of course I’m not!”

“Would you like to become sure?”

Garth stopped, biting back whatever nonsense he was about to spew. There was no lying his way out of this, no game he could fix.

“How do I know Arkhitekton would even speak to me?” he asked quietly. “How do I know this isn’t all just...a cosmic joke?”

Mother Jori considered this carefully, stirring the tea in her hand. “I suppose you won’t know until you get there. The presence of Arkhitekton, I mean. But I can tell you with reasonable certainty that after the vigil...you _will_ know.”

“How can you be certain?”

She looked him dead in the eye. “It worked for me.”

Garth didn’t need to take a moment to decide. He already knew he was staying; no reason to pass up his chance to be in on the joke, to have certainty about one single thing in his life. But he took the moment anyway, for appearances’ sake.

“Fine,” he said finally, letting his pack slide off his shoulder. “Fine.”

“I’m truly glad to hear it,” Mother Jori said, and he believed her. She took a long pull at her tea, and then glanced up at the wall. “Well. I’m not going to be able to sleep after all this. Take a walk with me?”

“Sure,” Garth said, defeated, and put down his pack next to her chair.

***

For something so momentous, which all the other trainees wouldn’t stop talking about, the lead-up to the vigil was remarkably lonely and quiet, Garth thought. They drew lots for days—Garth came third—and he was instructed to bathe, more thoroughly than usual, to dress in something simple, and to report to the chapel at sunset.

He did so, feeling strange. He even cut his hair, just to look his best—turned out Letty had a mirror she’d been willing to lend—feeling like a little boy about to sit for a portrait. Was this how reverence made you feel? Small and taciturn and a little bit scared? Sure, he was entering the presence of a god, but he wasn’t resigned to smiting this time, like a year and a half ago at the initial test. He also wasn’t entirely sure anything would happen, so there was that.

He was wearing just a shirt and breeches when he arrived at the chapel, and was therefore cold in the nippy fall air. Mother Jori and Brother Ebert waited for him at the door, but there was no one else around.

“Are you ready?” Mother Jori asked.

Garth shrugged. “Doesn’t really matter if I’m not, does it?”

Mother Jori smiled wryly at this.

“Trainee, you have been given instructions?” asked Brother Ebert, with a sort of official tone to his voice.

Ah, all out of time for jokes, apparently. “I have,” Garth said.

“And what are those instructions?”

“I will enter the chapel when you give the go-ahead and speak my name in the presence of Arkhitekton,” Garth recited. “I will spend the night in contemplation of Arkhitekton, their ways, and their will for my life. I will not sleep. I will not emerge until I am sent for.”

“Good,” said Brother Ebert. “Except in the case of an emergency, failure to comply with those rules will mean forfeiting your wish to become a paladin. In the case of an emergency, I shall be in the narthex to assist you. Do you understand?”

“I do,” Garth said.

“Then if you wouldn’t mind leading me inside?”

Somehow Garth had forgotten he was blind. “Of course.”

Garth took his arm, led him up the steps, and opened the door to the narthex. Brother Ebert’s sewing basket and knitting needles were already on a chair inside; Brother Ebert felt around, picked up the needles, and took a seat. “When you are ready, you may begin.”

Garth took a deep breath. Time for some answers. He opened the door and entered the chapel.

It was still and silent in here. A few candles had been lit, but otherwise it was dark. The window at the back glowed faintly, catching the end of the sunset, maybe. The door swung shut behind him.

Garth approached the window slowly. The name, that was where you started. He cleared his throat, suddenly unsure. It wasn’t as though Arkhitekton didn’t know who he was.

“I am Garth, and I want to know what exactly it is you want from me.”

He waited, and there was only silence. He waited longer.

“Hello?” he said after a while.

Nothing.

Garth blew out a breath. He knew this was too good to be true.

Maybe if he—

Ugh, the thought didn’t bear dwelling on. He waited some more, watching the last light fade from the window.

Then again, Arkhitekton’s whole obsession with truth…

He sighed. Fine. “I’m Garth. Alias...Garth Yolis. And Garth Leithart. And Garth Waverly, and Garth Westin.” He hadn’t said those names in a long time. On purpose. He didn’t want to go on, but he did. “And...Westin Quines.”

That was the last fake name. There was one more. He cleared his throat, and lowered his voice.

“Born...Garth Carvall de Vinch. Second son of...the Baron de Vinch.”

The confession was swallowed up by the silence of the dark room. No reply.

“You understand, that’s not really who I am now,” Garth told the window hastily. “It hasn’t been for a long time. I left that behind. Rejected it.”

For a moment, Garth thought he saw something, but it was just the flickering reflection of a guttering candle in one of the panes.

He was conscious of his medallion, sitting suddenly heavy on his chest under his shirt. He swallowed. “I guess I don’t get to leave things behind, with you.”

The lack of answers he was promised was starting to get on his nerves. Maybe he was supposed to do the vigil thing, contemplate for a while. Maybe then things would be clear. Think on Arkhitekton’s nature and will.

He started to pace. Down the left side of the room, halfway across the back, up the center. A right turn to the right side of the room, then down that way, and return up the center, in a sort of squared-off figure-8. Arkhitekton. God of life lived. Good and bad, evil and righteous, kind and cruel. If you live, live as well as you can, make your life good for yourself and the people around you. Be careful not to take life from others though, for you are no better than your neighbor. Arkhitekton, god of life lived.

He paced and contemplated, contemplated and paced. Time passed…

...Hours, probably, until his feet and his head started to complain, and he returned again to the center, to the window. “So?”

Still, no answer, no sign.

“Please?” Garth attempted.

Nothing.

“When’s the last time I said please?” Garth wondered out loud, plopping down in the front pew of the chapel. “To Fennit, probably.”

Gods, he missed her. Not often, but sometimes he so strongly wished she was here. Like now. She’d say something orthodox and solid, and he’d make fun of her, but it would stick with him anyway.

Garth took a break from contemplating the nature of Arkhitekton to contemplate the window. He still couldn’t make out what shape it was depicting. No one knew for sure. He knew the story now, told as the central fable of the order. Almost a hundred years ago, an old man had built the window, unprompted and almost frenzied, following the voice of a god no one else could hear. He made the window first—the chapel came later—despite the fact that the man had been a farmer, not a glazier. They said his blood and tears were smeared on every pane. It was supposed to depict Arkhitekton; not what they looked like, but what they _were._

Garth didn’t get it.

He stared, letting the minutes slide on by, trying to extract meaning. There were no patterns. It was a bunch of leaded nonsense.

After a while his mind started to wander.

You know, you could treat it like clouds, if you looked at it long enough. Find shapes. Like there was a cat, and there was a hammer, and there was a bed with a hand hanging off the edge—

His back twinged. He frowned. That was strange. The twinge had been right where his scar was, but it had never bothered him before, at least not physically. Some old memories surfaced; he pushed them away.

There was a sled. There was an open book. There was a bottle spinning through the air, spilling drops of whiskey—

The split in his eyebrow suddenly stung, just for a moment. “Ow,” whispered Garth, hand floating up to touch it. “What…”

Oh. Oh! 

Garth sat up straighter. “All right...you have my attention.”

Still, there was no answer.

He let the silence stretch on for what was probably a few minutes but felt like a godsdamned year. And now he couldn't get rid of the memories that crept into the back of his mind like a fungus. He turned his attention back to the window, desperate for anything else to think about, and immediately picked out the shape of an arrow in its panes, and the scarred pit in his stomach gave a small sharp stab.

“Ow, what the hell?” Garth demanded of the window. “I said I’m paying attention!”

But the pain was gone, and there was no answer, and maybe he had imagined it...he had felt that, right?

“Are you showing me these things, or am I looking for them?” he asked the window.

Immediately, his eyes caught upon a few panes that together looked like a capital i, and for the briefest moment, his shoulder burned like it was on fire. He yelped, yanking up his sleeve to look at it, but just as quickly the searing was gone, and there was nothing there to see except freckles.

He let his sleeve slide down. “Fennit. That was Fennit, not me.”

Silence, but nevertheless Garth felt like the answer couldn’t be anything but yes. So he looked at the glass again, and braced himself for pain—

But no pain came, only images in the window, some of which he recognized as his—mask, dice, sword—and others, which might have been Fennet’s or someone else’s, a cradle, a kite, a gravestone, a broom, a pyre, a ship, a shield.

“So it's life, that’s what the window is?” Garth said, searching for more images. “All of life, everyone’s?”

Images stopped sticking out to him. Now he could see the entire picture the window was making, a pattern so hopelessly complex that he could spend his whole life trying to untangle it. It didn’t seem haphazard or even abstract anymore.

“Wow,” he breathed. Was this what Arkhitekton was trying to show him?

He spent a while lingering over that bigger picture, half afraid that if he looked away he’d lose sight of it.

“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by a god being impressive,” he murmured. “It’s beautiful, though. Not that you need me to tell you that.”

That was very nearly worship, what he’d just said. He imagined Arkhitekton looking not a little smug.

“I still don’t understand why I’m here, is the thing.” Garth threw his arm out behind him. “You have your pick of worshipers, and they’re all better than me.”

Better by what metric? The question popped into his head unbidden.

“Every metric,” Garth shot back. “They want to be here, for one!”

And you don’t?

“Well—maybe want isn’t the right word, but at the very least they volunteered. And they’re not a bunch of liars.”

You stayed.

“I stayed for answers,” Garth snapped. “Why won’t you give me any?”

To this there was no reply.

And he was talking to himself, he realized with derision. He stood up and crossed his arms. “Why call attention to my first scars? What was the point of that?”

No answer.

“If you know who I am—” Garth cut himself off, running his hand over his newly shorn hair. Loathe to drag it all up, things he tried with everything he had to forget. “You know how angry…You know why I’ve tried to get far away from…”

That was why, wasn’t it? It was because he’d tried to forget it all, and that was a thing he was not allowed to do. Arkhitekton was god of _all_ life lived.

Garth let his arms drop, feeling a little resentment bubble up in his stomach. “You know, before I came here, I was happy.”

He wasn’t sure why he expected a response to this, but none came. 

Garth started to pace in front of the window, feeling like a caged lion. “It wasn’t much of a living, sure, and sometimes I had to run for my life, but...I could do whatever I liked! It was fun! I didn’t have to fight, and no one cared where I came from...but now, training in combat again, all I can think about is how I have to fight and—and all these expectations that have always followed me around that I’m never going to live up to—”

He stopped to throw a hand out at the window. “And what’s it all for? What’s the point? Did you want to just make me unhappy?”

The question disappeared into the silence.

“All this…” His hand dropped. “What do I get out of the bargain?”

The feeling hit him like an explosion, like a blast of magic out of nowhere, an unfamiliar feeling he could barely parse. It was confidence, without bravado; it was peace that did not require the promise of safety; it was the completely alien feeling that he was...worth something.

The feeling lingered, for just a moment longer than the twinges of his scars, just long enough to convince Garth that he wasn’t making it up.

And then it was gone, leaving him gasping, eyes stinging. He’d never felt that way before, not once in his life, and now Arkhitekton had promised—had _offered—_

Garth dropped to his knees in front of the window and cried.

***

It seemed like just a short time after that Brother Ebert called him out of the chapel, exhausted and probably tearstained, into the waiting group of trainee paladins and Mother Jori, who greeted him with congratulations and bustled him off to a celebratory breakfast and then to bed. He woke in the afternoon, feeling fuzzy and strange. No work was required of him today, no combat practice or teaching. The vigil seemed simultaneously like a lifetime ago and like it was still happening. That feeling, the feeling of worth, was gone, but the memory lingered, too sharp to ignore.

***

Garth wandered out of the dormitory building two nights later, bundled up against the cold and lost in thought. He wasn’t too surprised this time by Mother Jori, sitting in her chair and sipping her tea.

“Good evening,” she said, looking puzzled. “You don’t look like you’re leaving.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Garth admitted. “Take a walk with me?”

A smile spread across Mother Jori’s round face. “I would love to.” She hopped up, still holding her tea, and together they fell into step walking along the wall.

“Have you been waiting for me to leave every night?” Garth asked.

“Every night since your vigil,” she said, walking slowly to keep her tea from spilling. “You didn’t say a word that morning. I wasn’t sure where your head was at.”

That was fair, he supposed. He couldn’t really feel offended. He’d been so ready to go before that night.

“What’s keeping you from resting?” Mother Jori asked him.

“I was thinking about my vows,” Garth said carefully. “I’m not sure what to swear.”

“Hm.”

Garth glanced at her to find her giving him a searching gaze. “What?”

“I think you know what,” she countered.

Garth cleared his throat, a little embarrassed.

“I’m glad you found your answers.”

“I wouldn’t say that exactly,” Garth muttered. “Not if the question was why Arkhitekton chose me.”

“Then I would be interested in what changed your mind.”

“Arkhitekton—” Garth stopped and shook his head. “This sounds...insane, saying it out loud.”

“You might be surprised.”

Garth capitulated for a minute. “Um...Arkhitekton said...no, they didn’t say, they didn’t speak, it was a sort of...feeling.”

“What kind of feeling?” Mother Jori’s tone was mild, which helped, because this next bit was uncomfortable.

Garth swallowed. Telling the truth. New. “If I become their paladin, they’ll um...I’ll end up...worth something.”

“Hmm.” Mother Jori frowned.

Regret flooded into Garth’s chest. He shouldn’t have said anything, he knew it sounded stupid—

“I think that’s a misinterpretation,” she said.

The flicker of doubt stopped short. “What are you talking about?”

“You’re already worth something, Garth.”

Garth treated her to his most skeptical look.

“Yes, yes, I know you don’t believe me, you’re a liar and a cheat, all that,” she said, waving a hand.

He shook his head. “I don’t think I’m explaining this right.”

“Do you want to try again?”

“It’s not that, it’s...deeper than that, I don’t know.”

“Either way, I maintain the point,” she said. “You’re already worth something.”

“I think the day I believe that will be the day I finally feel like I belong here,” Garth said dryly.

“Then may that day come hastily,” she said, raising her tea in a toast before taking a swig.

Garth didn’t answer. This conversation was very unsatisfying. She didn’t really get it. She might never.

“In any case,” Jori said, “I’m glad that this was your decision. You will make an excellent paladin.”

Ah, good, more things he couldn’t possibly believe.

“I’m proud of you, Garth.”

The sentence stopped him dead in his tracks, frozen.

Mother Jori turned back to look at him. “Are you all right? What’s wrong?”

How did one breathe again? Ah, yes, there we go. In and out. “Nothing,” he said hoarsely. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Mhm, mhm,” he said, and made himself keep walking, not looking at Mother Jori.

“All right.”

They moved on in silence.

“You know, there is one answer I did get,” Garth said after a while.

“What’s that?”

“I don’t think I’m the center of a cosmic joke.”

Mother Jori chuckled. “That’s always a good sign.”

Garth smiled. He felt...lighter.

***

“Garth, come forward.”

The ceremony took place the next week in the chapel. No one had failed their vigil or left afterward, so one by one, each trainee was called up in front of the others and a crowd of monks and acolytes and whoever else cared to come to speak their vows and receive their orders. They were each dressed in new armor, sans helmets, with weapons that had been made for them. The uniform of a paladin, if they were using “uniform” loosely; they looked like they belonged to the same order, but there was a very wide range of styles. Garth was uncomfortable, but more mentally than physically. His armor fit him perfectly, and as for the weapon, he shouldn’t have been surprised, but they’d made him a bastard sword.

And now it was his turn to speak his vows and receive orders. He was last again. So far most people, including all the trainees he’d been teaching, had been instructed to stay here. Derkin was to go off to study with the monks at the forest enclave, and Brotta was to join the clerics for a time, but Garth fully expected to be staying. He was only just coming around to being a paladin, after all.

Proceeding to the front of the room, he resisted the urge to look back at the audience. Some of the paladins had family in the pews, and thinking as he had about home lately, he wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

Garth took a knee in front of Mother Jori, in the pool of colorful light that was coming through the window. He couldn’t see the big picture in the window as clearly as he had during his vigil, but he still got glimpses of it, here and there. He thought about the window, because thinking too hard about the audience might edge this into acting territory, and he didn’t want that. Not today.

“In the presence of Arkhitekton, what do you swear?”

Garth cleared his throat. Most people had gone the route of protect the innocent, uphold the name of Arkhitekton, et cetera, but his had to be a little different. “I swear to use my wits at least as much for other people’s benefit as I do for my own,” he said. “I swear to fight if I have to, in order to protect someone, without hesitating. And I swear that when Arkhitekton speaks or moves...I’ll listen and obey.”

His promises sounded feeble and mediocre compared to what the other paladins swore, but they were going to be hard for him, dammit. And anyway, this wasn’t for them.

Mother Jori seemed to read his mind. “No small task. Your vows are witnessed and recorded. Do you submit to being held accountable for them to the order?”

“I do,” Garth said.

“Then receive this direction: you will go out to the village of Pemmik, and drive off the creature in the woods that disrupts their livelihood, and from there begin your travels as a servant of your god.”

Garth looked up sharply. “What?”

An intrigued murmur went up from the crowd.

“Do you accept your orders, Garth?”

“But I’m not ready for that, I’m only just now—”

“Do you accept the direction of your order and your god, Garth?” Mother Jori said sharply.

Garth bit his tongue. He’d just swore he would. Why the hell— “I accept.”

“Then rise, Garth, Paladin of Arkhitekton.”

He did, one hand resting on his sword, his armor colored and reflecting the shards of light from the stained glass beside him. Liar, fraud, suddenly lost and unsure. Paladin.


End file.
